I 



REFUTATION 



OF THE 

ARGUMENT A PRIORI 

FOR THE 

BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD ; 

SHOWING 

THE IRRELEVANCY OF THAT ARGUMENT, 

AS WELL AS THE 

FALLACIOUS REASONING 

OF 

I>R. IAM.UEIi CLAUKE OTIIEf&S, 

ESPECIALLY OF 

MR GILLESPIE, 

IN SUPPORT OF IT. 

BY 

ANTITHEOS. 

______________ v***frV^A 

" AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM." 

" A man that is first in his own cause seemeth right, but his neighbour cometh 
after him and searcheth him." 

" In the present instance, as in all others, there is not a single position taken in 
hostility to antitheistical principles, that will not also be found hostile, either to 
physical science or sound philosophy." 



GLASGOW: 

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY H. ROBINSON & CO., 

7, BRUNSWICK PLACE, 

For the Glasgow Zetetic Society, 
AND SOLD BY THE BOOKSELLERS. 
' 1838. 



Exchange 
Western Ont. Univ. Library 



APR 1 7 1940 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 029153 



PREFACE. 



The circumstance which has unexpectedly called forth the 
following refutation is somewhat remarkable. A gentle- 
man who, in 1833, published a volume, entitled, " An 
Argument a priori for the Being and Attributes of God," 
sent a challenge, a few months ago, to a society of free- 
thinkers in this city, " to refute the reasoning contained in 
the aforesaid work." The tone of the communication is 
rather fierce than gallant ; haughty and cavalier rather than 
courteous. Perhaps the author, in his zeal of God, does not 
conceive any great civility to be due to those who do not 
subscribe to his own creed. If so, it is only another in- 
stance among the many that occur, of men, even men of 
learning and talents, allowing a morose religion to hold the 
sway over their better nature. 

Mr Gillespie, the author of the argument alluded to, had 
been disappointed, it seems, in finding an antagonist else- 
where, notwithstanding his anxious endeavours to provoke 
opposition. The gauntlet was thrown down, but no one was 
fully prepared to take it up. This may have been the 
ground of his confidence, and of his almost triumphant anti- 
cipations of submission in all against whom he might think 
proper to assume a hostile bearing. If, however, hearty and 
fair opposition be all that he desires, that object of his wishes 
is now offered him as some compensation for his former dis- 
appointments. 

It may nevertheless of all this be mentioned, that the 
challenge was accepted — not exactly to gratify Mr Gillespie 
— nor because any of the individuals appealed to in the 
affair, held himself bound to lift the gage, or answer any call 
to refute opinions contrary to his own, — but because one of 
them had long since purposed to write some time or other 
upon the subject. This was at least the principal motive. 
Another might be to vindicate openly avowed freethinkers 
from the charge (implied in the gentleman's letter) of incom- 



iv 

petency to such a task. The letter itself indeed might here 
have been inserted verbatim, — only that a considerable pro- 
portion of it consists of irrelevant matter, besides containing 
passages which could by no means militate in favor of the 
writer, but of which his respondent wishes to take no advan- 
tage. 

This article might have been restricted to the considera- 
tion of Mr. Gillespie's work, and to that alone. Indeed, in 
the note addressed to Mr. G. intimating that his argument 
would be replied to, nothing was stated of any other course 
being contemplated. But on second thoughts, it was con- 
ceived that this would be to narrow the thing too much. 
Other writers have signalized themselves in the treatment of 
the greatest question in theology by the argument a priori : 
— and it might have been said with justice, and without dis- 
paragement to any one, — that such a reply would have been 
very defective, as overlooking the first and greatest authority 
in the case. A supplementary answer, it is true, might have 
been made to follow; but this plan of publication is both 
awkward and inconvenient, and moreover, it would not have 
' squared so well with the original intention already expressed. 

It has further to be noticed, that in replying to the argu- 
ment a priori, it would be unreasonable to expect every thing 
to be brought under consideration which the authors who 
have adopted this strain of reasoning, have chosen to intro- 
duce. In strict conformity with logical principle, perhaps, 
they ought not to be followed one step " out of the record," 
however far they may wander from it. I shall as seldom as 
possible deviate from this principle; yet, if on an occasion, a 
plausible argument be found thrust in, having no proper 
place in what is going forward, I trust I shall be excused for 
attending to it, on the ground that it is safer to do too much 
in this way than too little, — especially as it is too commonly 
apt to be supposed, that an argument unanswered is one 
that is unanswerable. 

Glasgow, 15th Dec. 1837. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter I. Character and Irrelevancy of the Argument Page 7 

II. Fallacies of Dr Clarke's Demonstration 14 

III. Same Subject, continued 26 

IV. Fallacies of Mr Richard Jack 33 

V. Fallaciousness of Mr Gillespie's " Argument" — The Intro- 

duction , 38 

VT. Fallacies of Mr Gillespie — The " Argument" 42 

VII. Same Subject, continued.. 50 

VIII. False Reasoning of Mr Gillespie — Second Part of his Work 55 

IX. Fallaciousness of the Third Part of do 59 

X. Mr Gillespie's Second Book — A Departure from his own 

Argument... 65 

XI. Fallacy of the Argument in favor of a Supreme Intelligence 69 

XII. Impossibility of ascribing Moral Attributes to the Subject of 

Mr Gillespie's Reasoning.... 77 

XIII. Retrospective and Concluding Remarks 81 



< 



CHAPTER L 



Character and Irrelevancy of the Argument. 

To hear of the existence of a god being made the subject 
of demonstration by argument, is altogether astounding. 
The announcement, on the other hand, sounds so oddly, as 
to mitigate the effect of the first impression, if not to excite 
ridicule at the wonderful discrepancy between the end in 
view, and the means laid out for the attainment of it. Habit, 
however, reconciles people to the greatest absurdities ; and 
the approval of the argument a priori by a considerable pro- 
portion — it might be added, the most erudite and enlight- 
ened — of the Christian world, compels us to regard it with 
more deference than its intrinsic merits deserve. 

The legitimate mode of effecting any demonstration rela- 
tive to the real existence of things, is by an exhibition of 
the thing itself whose existence is the subject of proof. 
Now, a god, in as far as this point is concerned, must be 
held as a real being ; that is, his votaries, as a matter of 
course, maintain this to be the fact. This granted, argument 
appears quite out of place. It would never do to talk of 
proving the existence of the man in the moon by argument ; 
neither would it be of any avail to employ a syllogism or a 
sorites to demonstrate the existence of a navigable channel 
between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, through the arctic 
regions of America : yet if the reasoning under review be 
relevant, these must be so too. If an a priori argument be 
capable of proving the existence of one thing, another may 
be proved by the same, or any other logical process. 

It may be accounted indecorous, perhaps, to refer such 
similes to the being of a god. But the tenderness of parties 
upon certain points whereabout they are apt to feel sore, is 
not to be taken as a reason why they should not be touched, 
even in attempting a cure. It is convenient, I dare say, to 



8 



affect being pained, and to express dislike with respect to 
the idea of — reducing, I was going to say, but it really is — 
bringing up, the evidence to be admitted in proving the 
existence of a deity, to the level of that which is alone ad- 
missible in other cases of the same kind. It is even highly 
serviceable to the interests of religion, for its more acute 
and sensitive adherents to appear shocked themselves, and 
excite similar feelings in others, and the passions conse- 
quent upon them, at any such proposal as that now hinted at. 
Why people should be shocked, however, why they should 
either be disgusted or pained, I cannot well perceive, unless 
it be merely from prejudice; for the nature of the subject of 
probation certainly requires some small support from the 
evidence of the senses. 

This kind of demonstration, all the theology of all the 
religions in the world, cannot afford. But if a god is never 
to be seen now-a-days, as is pretended to have been the case in 
former times, we are told to look to Nature, where we may see 
God in his works. This is the common and more fashion- 
able way of discussing the great question before us, which 
has prevailed from Philo's time to the present. It is called 
the argument a posteriori: it relies on experience, and de- 
duces causes from their effects. This process, however, is 
quite illogical, and, although it were otherwise, is of no 
great utility in its operation. It takes for granted the exist- 
ence of an agent capable of producing the effects contem- 
plated as the source of the argument — which of course is 
begging the principle — and only attempts to make out 
pow r er, and wisdom, and goodness, and so forth, to be pro- 
per attributes of that agent. As Mr Gillespie himself has 
well observed, it cannot prove wisdom, goodness, power, or 
any other divine attribute to be unlimited. Assuming the 
existence of a god, it cannot demonstrate that he has always 
existed; it cannot demonstrate that he must exist eternally, 
nor even prove that that existence may not have already ter- 
minated. A clock continues to indicate the lapse of time, 
although the hand that set it in motion has ceased to be 
animate. 



9 



The idea of so grievous a defect inherently attaching to 
evidence so much relied upon, was not to be endured, and 
some of the consequences, although barely glanced at, were 
too horrid for contemplation. Up starts the logician of the 
new school, therefore, with a remedy for this great evil. A 
scheme is devised of making every point at issue a matter of 
rigid demonstration. The most exalted view of the divine 
character is to be taken. All the attributes of deity are to 
be drawn to the largest scale — nay, magnified to infinitude 
itself, and borne out in a manner the most absolute, as well 
as his eternity both past and future. It is irrefragably to be 
proved, not only that a god does exist, but that he must exist, 
and that too as necessarily as that two and two make four ; — 
that his non-existence, in short, cannot even be conceived ! 

A vast project this is, most undoubtedly : demanding 
powers and ingenuity equally vast to execute. Like the 
dogma of all things being created out of nothing, to which, 
indeed, this argument is strongly allied, the thing seems im- 
possible. Maugre every impediment, however, the attempt 
is boldly made. A being existing by necessity is sought for ; 
that is (according to the new logic) one whose non-existence 
it is not in the power of man to imagine; simple in its 
essence ; indivisible : everywhere present, and without which 
nothing else can be supposed to exist. To seek in nature 
for such a being ; to ransack the whole universe for it were 
vain. Among real and known existences it was nowhere to 
be found. But the brain of the theologue, like the lan- 
thorn of Diogenes, was set to discover what the sun could 
not reveal ; and if equally honest with the cynic, his imitator 
would have been every whit as unsuccessful. Those who 
contrive an object for search, however, know precisely where 
to find it. Hence, the reasoner of the anti-experimental 
sect having laid up the thing cut and dry, in his own con- 
ceptions, brought it forth with an air of triumph due to a 
great discovery. 

It could not escape observation among minds of an ab- 
stract and reflective turn, that space possesses some of the 
attributes commonly ascribed to deity, such as infinity, and, 



10 



of course, omnipresence ; immateriality, and so forth : that 
duration cannot be supposed to have had a beginning, or to 
be within the possibility of ever coming to an end. It must 
thus have appeared to the metaphysical theist, exceedingly 
desirable to bring these idle and unappropriated attributes 
into more useful play, and in a manner the most advan- 
tageous to the. common faith. Clarke and Butler, and 
all their followers, have accordingly talked much of these 
matters, and evinced a strong predilection for them in 
selecting examples wherewithal to illustrate the abso- 
lute and infinite perfections of the divine nature. These 
metaphysicians, in short, have made space and duration 
usurp the station and dignity of a divine being. They have 
taken this empty and inanimate fabrication, and set it up in a 
newly-erected shrine of curiously mathematical construc- 
tion, and fallen down to it as the god of their idolatry. 

If the theory be vague and visionary which the argument 
a priori is introduced to support, it is not to be expected that 
the argument itself should be of a different character. A 
false principle cannot well be maintained by reasoning 
which is true. The truth is, the argument in question is 
nothing else than an attempt to establish the application of 
mathematical reasoning to what it has nothing in earth or 
heaven to do with, — namely, real existences ; at least what is 
held to be real by those who employ such argument. But 
how vain and preposterous the attempt ! As well might it 
be maintained, that as the whole is in the abstract a perfect 
quantity, it must contain within itself all the qualities of the 
different parts of which it is composed ; that as some of 
these parts are small and some large, some round and 
some square, some black and some white ; it must be white 
and black, and square and round, and large and small at the 
same time ! Aristotelians inform us, that every sound argu- 
ment is capable of being reduced to the syllogistic form. If 
so, I should be glad to hear from their own lips an exempli- 
fication in the present case. To my own untrained thinking, 
it should run somewhat thus : — 
Whatever necessarily possesses absolute perfections is God ; 



11 



Metaphysical abstractions possess absolute perfections ; — 
Therefore, metaphysical abstractions are God. 
If this be not a fair statement of the whole argument in the 
most logical form, I am at a loss to know what is. Should 
it be any way wrongs and should some ardent disciple of the 
metaphysical school of theology deign hereafter to take a 
part in this discussion, it would be well were he to consult 
the Stagyrite and correct it. In any event, our reasoners 
a priori have either to acknowledge the absurdity here set 
forth in mood and figure, or deny that they appropriate ab- 
stract reasoning to questions of ontological science. If their 
god be a real being — an agent, he cannot be a heap of ab- 
stractions : if made up of abstractions, he cannot be an 
agent. No reasoning imaginable can make him both : yet 
to nothing short of working out this impossibility does the 
argument aim. 

It must be granted, indeed, that such parts of the process 
as have a bearing upon the divine actions, as well as those 
which go to establish the moral and intellectual character of 
deity, do not properly belong to the argument a priori. 
These things are either boldly thrust in where they are out 
of all keeping, or humbly introduced in forma pauperis, and 
so made to pass off with the rest. But after all, and with 
every advantage, fair and foul, that can be claimed for it, it 
is at best but a sorry piece of patch work. Restricted to its 
own province, it can prove nothing, demonstrate nothing to 
be either true or false but what is necessarily so, in the most 
abstract and mathematical sense of the terms. 

Here, indeed, the grand secret in managing the argument 
before us lies. It affixes a partial and out-of-the-way mean- 
ing to words, especially those upon which the whole ques- 
tion turns, and so, misconstrues and misapplies general lan- 
guage. Necessity, for instance, which by the way is the key- 
stone of the structure, is different from what it is found to 
be anywhere else, except, perhaps, in some other region of 
mere speculation. In the premises, it is attenuated to the 
utmost fineness of its mathematical acceptation, although the 
weight of its common and real meaning is essential to the 

B 



12 



validity of the conclusion. Substance, in like manner, is to- 
tally dissimilar to any thing known by that name. It seems 
an evanescent, or rather imperceptible — nothing; yet, lo ! it 
is found in the end that something substantial was after all 
to be understood. 

These things, however, will be more clearly apprehended 
when we come to discuss the logic of this strange argument 
in detail. In the meantime it may not be amiss to show, that 
the character of irrelevancy here laid at the door of the 
a priori argument, is not unwarranted by the authority of 
good judges among the religious themselves. Abundance of 
quotations might be adduced, but I shall content myself 
with an extract from the Edinburgh Review for October 
1830, (vol. Hi. p. 113,) in an article upon Dr Morehead's 
" Dialouges on Natural and Revealed Religion." That the 
reviewer reasons upon theistical principles is evident from 
the allusion he makes to " the will of the creator," to which, 
I may remark in passing, he allows the most orthodox lati- 
tude. Relative to our argument a priori he observes : — 
" The truth is, it involves a radical fallacy which not only 
renders it useless but dangerous to the cause it is intended 
to support. The question as to the being of a god, is 
purely a question of fact: he either exists or he does not 
exist. But there is an evident absurdity in pretending to 
demonstrate a matter of fact, or to prove it by argument a 
priori ; because nothing is demonstrable unless the contrary 
implies a contradiction, and this can never be predicated 
of the negative of any proposition which merely affirms or 
asserts a matter of fact. Whatever we conceive as existent, 
we can also conceive as non-existent, and consequently there 
is no being whose non-existence implies a contradiction, or, 
in other words, whose existence is a priori demonstrable. 
This must be evident to every one who knows what demon- 
stration really means. It is a universal law, that all heavy 
bodies descend to the earth in a line directed towards its 
centre. But the contrary of this may easily be conceived, 
because it involves no contradiction ; for bodies might have 
fallen upward, if we may so express it, as well as downward, 



IS 



had such been the will of the creator. But we cannot con- 
ceive the opposite of one of the demonstrated truths of geo- 
metry, as, for example, that the three angles of a triangle 
should be either greater or less than two right angles, be- 
cause this implies a contradiction. The distinction, there- 
fore, between necessary or demonstrable truths and matters 
of fact, consists in this,—- that the contrary of the former 
involves a contradiction, whereas that of the latter does not. 
But there is no contradiction implied in conceiving the non- 
existence of the deity; and therefore his existence is not a 
necessary truth, a priori demonstrable." 

To add any thing to the foregoing reasoning of the 
reviewer were perhaps superfluous. It is clear and satisfac- 
tory. Yet I cannot well refrain from taking notice of a 
single circumstance by way of illustration. Men have often 
been made to suffer severely — on some occasions to the loss 
of life — for denying the being of a god, while the great mass 
of the people, so far from regarding these occurrences as 
either absurd or unjust, have looked on them as well-merited 
punishments. But was ever any one put to death, or sent 
to the pillory, for denying that twice two make four? The 
idea, indeed, is ridiculous ; but wherefore should it be so ? 
Simply because it is not possible there should be any differ- 
ence of opinion about the matter. If, however, the dogmas 
of theology, or even say the primary one, were capable of 
demonstration as mathematical doctrines are, there could be 
no difference in the respect due to doubts and denials in 
either case ; or rather, it would be impossible to find doubt- 
ers and deniers in the one more than in the other. I do not 
mention the horrid penalties awarded in our barbarous laws 
to certain kinds of unbelief, in proof of the real importance 
of the articles of faith they have been enacted to maintain 
by brute force. Statutes of this description are a proof of 
nothing but legislative ignorance and the persecuting nature 
of the religions they have been made to defend. Their very 
existence, however, as well as that of the stupid prejudices, 
alas ! but too prevalent, upon which they are founded, are 
totally incompatible with the validity of that mode of argu- 



14 



ment which would demonstrate the being of a god upon 
abstract principles. 

But the propositions and reasonings of the different 
authors who have adopted the mode of procedure now shown 
to be directed so wide of the mark, must not be passed over 
without special notice. It is more easy to censure an argu- 
ment in general terms, than to meet all its particular parts 
on fair and open grounds. Even this labour, therefore, I 
cheerfully undertake, that there may be nothing left to sup- 
pose on the score of disingenuousness or pretended want of 
interest in the matter. No one can be more fully aware than 
I am, of how nearly this discussion approaches in some points 
to a verbal dispute. But what of that? If the religious 
world choose to peril their cause on grounds so insecure, upon 
themselves let the dishonour of perverting things from their 
right purposes, and all its consequences, fall. Be it always 
remembered, too, that this argument of theirs, has repeat- 
edly been put forth as invulnerable, and that according to 
their own showing, the' mighty problem of the being of a 
god depends upon the result. 



CHAP. II. 

Fallacies of Dr Clarke's Demonstration, 

In examining the reasonings of the theologians who have 
advocated the fundamental articles of their creed upon a 
priori principles, the "Demonstration of the being and attri- 
butes of God," by Dr Samuel Clarke,, demands our first 
attention. This much is due to the reverend divine on ac- 
count of his acknowledged talents and great reputation, as 
well as the early appearance of his work. His Demonstra- 
tion has been too long before the public, and ranks too high 
as a standard theological production, to require particular 
description here. This celebrated treatise is stated in twelve 
propositions, supported severally by such arguments as the 
author must have deemed best calculated for that purpose. 



15 



He introduces his subject by^assigning certain causes for 
the existence of atheism. These he specifies to be excessive 
ignorance and stupidity ; or vicious habits ; or, at best, false 
philosophy. 

It is perhaps hardly worth while to contend about these 
matters ; yet it may be observed, that if some savage tribes, as 
inferior in intelligence as they are represented, have no no- 
tion or belief of the being of a god ; a greater number, to the 
full as ignorant and stupid, possess abundance of credulity 
upon the subject ; and if we go to what is called civilised life, 
the most ignorant and debased are not only religious, but 
generally the most firmly fixed in their faith. The second 
class of persons mentioned, — men who from their evil prac- 
tices have been led to scoff at every thing religious — are not 
atheists at all. Such characters always show, in the hour of 
suffering and in the prospect of death, that they had never 
been thoroughly convinced of the falsehood of religion, but 
only that it marred their merriment and discountenanced 
their wickedness. The form and profession of faith thrown 
aside recklessly and without consideration, the essence re- 
mains. It lies dormant for a time, till the storm of passion 
which crushed it to a certain extent has subsided, when it 
springs into activity more powerfully than ever. Slavish- 
ness to the appetites can never convince the understanding. 
It may drive men to disregard religion, as well as every thing- 
else of a serious nature, but it cannot make them disbelievers. 
Disregarders and disbelievers, however, are very different 
characters. 

As to the philosophy which leads to atheism being false, 
that is the very question to be tried in the sequel. Of those, 
however, who take philosophy as the basis of their unbelief, 
the Doctor has a preliminary concession to demand ; namely, 
that the being of a god is very desirable. The demand is 
made that they should " be very willing, nay, desirous above 
all things to be convinced that their present opinion is an error." 
But what opinion must be formed of the goodness of a cause 
or the soundness of an argument, when it is found necessary 
either to beg or demand a predisposition in its favor ? The 



16 



frame of mind most proper and most adequate to judge of 
any matter, is to be without desire or predisposition of any 
kind, whether for or against it. Any other, indeed, is pre- 
judicial. Let us hear, however, what his reverence has to 
urge for the necessity of this concession. 

" Man of himself," says he, " is infinitely insufficient for 
his own happiness ; he is liable to many evils and miseries, 
which he can neither prevent nor redress ; he is full of wants 
which he cannot supply, and compassed about with infirmi- 
ties which he cannot remove, and obnoxious to dangers 
which he can never sufficiently provide against, &c. Under 
which evil circumstances it is evident there can be no suffi- 
cient support but in the belief of a wise and good God." 

To make this case worth a rush, it ought to have been 
shewn that the faithful are exempted, and none else, from 
the calamities here complained of. If the belief of a god, or 
even the real existence of such a being, is not to relieve me 
of my infirmities and wretchedness, why should either the 
one or the other be any way desirable to me ? What earthly 
good can it do a man environed with woes and worn down 
with misery, to be assured that a god exists who either can- 
not or will not afford him relief? Has it not rather a strong 
tendency to excite his chagrin ? A god so poor and useless 
as to be unable to afford him relief, could only be an object 
of reproach and contempt ; and one who could, but would 
not, must appear too odious and malevolent in character to 
be regarded with other feelings than fear — if not hatred and 
aversion. The incredulous man is, on the contrary, much 
more comfortably situated. If he suffers, — he estimates the 
causes, whether moral or physical, according to their own 
character, without looking into the terra incognito for some 
supposed agency to account for them. He is not like the 
child who beats the floor for hurting him when he falls, or 
kisses for not breaking his bones. 

If ever Dr Clarke studied the interesting subject of the 
origin of evil, or even thought or read upon it, he seems to 
have forgotten all ; for the above argument is given with the 
most admirable simplicity, although it evidently militates di- 



17 



rectly against himself. It is as much as to say, There is a 
dreadful deal of evil in the world, and we cannot get quit of 
it by any efforts of our own ; but these very circumstances 
render it imperative on the athiest to wish that the doctrine 
he is opposed to were true, since in that case he would have 
a god disinclined to remedy the evil, or as incapable of doing 
it as himself. — What ! says the unbeliever, convince us by 
our sufferings that we should like to have a god upon whom 
to father them ! This is certainly a new-fashioned way of 
paying compliment to deity. The author, to be sure, after- 
wards talks about the happiness of a hereafter, but to allude 
to a matter as admitted, which does not even follow as a 
consequence upon what he has yet to prove, is preposterous 
in the extreme ; more especially when, with regard to the 
primary point, he is only pleading for a favorable reception 
of what he has to offer in evidence. — But we must now recur 
to Dr Clarke's propositions. 

His first, that " something has existed from eternity" no 
one can object to. It carries its evidence along with it, and 
must indeed be as cordially agreed to by the antitheist as the 
most devout christian. The second, however, does not stand 
in the same predicament. It is this, " There must have ex- 
isted from eternity some one unchangeable and independent 
being." 

I need say nothing of the alteration of the subject in the 
present proposition from that of the preceding. It is perhaps 
of little consequence any farther than indicating a certain 
leaning, for which there ought to have been shewn some sort 
of warrant. Was the mere something in the one case, not 
sufficiently pregnant in meaning to sustain the weight of dig- 
nity awaiting the being in the other ? So at least it would 
appear. What I particularly object to, however, is, that the 
two terms in the predicate, " unchangeable and independ- 
ent," are linked together as inseparable. The author does 
not say one word in favor of this conjunction, and certainly 
there is no necessity for it in the nature of things. In his 
subsequent reasoning, he aims at establishing independence 
alone, yet his conclusions are afterwards and all along drawn 



18 



as if both had been demonstrated. What are we to think of 
such a beginning ? Precisely this, — that the reverend theorist 
was so intent upon making out his case in some sort, that an. 
obstruction is overleaped with surprising facility, and a hia- 
tus in his reasoning regarded as of no account. 

With respect to the independence of the something which 
has always existed, the author's argument amounts to this : 
there must either be one being only of independent exist- 
ence, or an infinite series of beings of dependent existence. 
But there cannot be an infinite series of the latter descrip- 
tion. Therefore, there can only be one being of independ- 
ent existence. — In support of his minor premiss, as here 
stated, Dr Clarke maintains that as no individual in the 
series can be the cause of itself, every one must have a cause, 
and if so, the whole must have a cause as well as the different 
parts. " If we consider," says he, " such an infinite pro- 
gression as one entire endless series of dependent beings, it 
is plain this whole series of beings can have no cause from 
without^ of its existence ; because in it are supposed to be in- 
cluded all things that are or ever were in the universe : and 
it is plain it can have no reason within itself of its existence; 
because no one being in this infinite succession is supposed 
to be self-existent or necessary, but every one dependent on 
the foregoing ; and where no part is necessary, it is manifest 
the whole cannot be necessary." 

The fallacy here lies in the use of terms totally inept, and 
like the entire argument, inappropriate to thepurpose. Isitnot 
absurd totalkofanythingbeing without or beyond infinity? and 
further, to make the whole force of a dilemma rest upon such 
absurdity? Is it not equally absurd to reason as if an end- 
less series were to be regarded as made up of parts, everyone 
of which may be taken into account ?" Did the metaphysi- 
cian suppose, that by the introduction of his distributives 
and collectives, he had grasped the term of that which is 
infinite? He says (in effect), you have told me what the 
cause of the last individual of the series is, and of the one 
preceding that, and so on, but you have not told me what is 
the cause of the first. The reply — it is almost superfluous to 



19 



say — is, that there can be no first, or'any thing to leave an 
idea of priority in the mind. 

Dr Clarke illustrates his argument by reference to an 
article extracted from Wollaston's Religion of Nature, com- 
paring an infinite series to a chain " hung down out of 
heaven from an unknown height." But the chain in this in- 
stance is like all other things by which theists would bring 
us to concur in their imagined cause of an infinite series. 
The chain is evidently meant to be limited in extent. If not, 
what is to be understood by the allusion made by the writer 
to "what it hung upon?" The point of suspension, although 
at an unknown height, is certainly somewhere, and so, 
acts as a limitation to our views, and by consequence ren- 
ders the simile useless. We may imagine the chain car- 
ried further off than where it is supposed to have hung 
from ; so that if it was infinite in its extent in the first case, 
it must be more than infinite in the second. 

But what is the difference, after all, between an imagi- 
nary chain infinitely extended, and an imaginary rod ex- 
tended in the same manner? If there be any difference 
relative to the point at issue, what is it? Yet the learned 
doctor would pronounce the one independent in its exis- 
tence, and the other necessarily the reverse ! 

The author states the same case in another form ; but as this 
repetition of the argument is founded upon the fallacy which 
has just been exploded, of course it must share the fate of 
that which serves as its basis. 

Dr Clarke himself seems half conscious of the inadequacy 
of his reasoning in demanding a cause for the existence of an 
infinite series, for he is reduced to the necessity of protest- 
ing, as it were, against the process by which he is baulked of 
his object. "It is only," he says, "a driving back from one 
step to another, and removing out of sight, the question 
concerning the ground or reason of the existence of things." 
What he adds about the series being neither self-existent nor 
necessary, is an unproved extravagance, the gist of which 
shall come under review in noticing the next proposition. — 
But here we may ask, if the same plea would not hold equally 

C 



20 



good against a single being? If it had not existed yester- 
day, it could not exist to-day. Its continued existence, then, 
depends upon its prior existence. If, however, it were ob- 
jected, that to carry back the inquiry concerning the ground 
or reason of its existence in this manner, would be to re- 
move the question out of sight altogether, — what could the 
doctor have answered that would not have " removed" his 
own weak objection ? 

Dr Clarke's third proposition is, that " That unchangeable 
and independent being which has existed from eternity without 
any external cause of its existence, must be self-existent, that is, 
necessarily existing." 

At first sight this proposition appears to differ little from 
the leading one. In glancing along what follows, however, 
we perceive that more — much more, is meant than directly 
meets the eye. Here, indeed, we have the epitome of the 
whole argument. Here the author makes a wild, but deter- 
mined assault upon the necessary existence of matter. Here 
he brings out those subtle and incomprehensible theories re- 
lative to the divine nature of space and duration, and the 
sine qua non of existence, which are so deeply interwoven 
with the argument, and at the same time involved in dark- 
ness and obscurity. And here too he summons up that 
most potent — that eldest of all existences — Necessity, which 
he subsequently exalts above all things ; even " above all 
that is called god and that is worshipped." — The truth is, 
that the stress he has laid upon necessary existence is so 
prodigious, that we are at a loss to see what he would be at. 
Is it not enough that the eternal being should be proved 
self-existent ; that is, uncreated ? " No," says Dr Clarke in 
the last words of his seventh reply to Butler;) " necessity is 
the ground, or reason, or foundation of existence, both of 
the divine substance and all the attributes ;" and in the pa- 
ragraph preceding, he speaks of that necessity by which the 
first cause exists ; and again, in his second letter, he declares 
necessity to be " in itself original, absolute, and in the order 
of nature, antecedent to all existence," — so that, according to 
this high authority, even the Great First Cause of all things, 



21 



(at least what the t heist calls by this name,) could not exist 
— but for NECESSITY. 

All this, of course, makes us somewhat curious to know 
what this mighty existence is, and it is so far fortunate that 
our curiosity does not go ungratified. We are told that it 
is anything the contrary of which it is a plain impossibility, 
or implying a contradiction to suppose : " for instance, 
the relation of equality between twice two and four is an 
absolute necessity, only because it is an immediate contra- 
diction in terms to suppose them unequal. This," the 
author continues to observe, " is the only idea we can frame 
of absolute necessity; and to use the word in any other 
sense, seems to be using it without any signification at all." 

Proceeding upon this partial, this extravagant view of the 
case, the reverend doctor sets about overthrowing the ne- 
cessary existence of matter, by attempting to prove that 
there is such a thing in nature as a vacuum. The attempt, 
however, falls wretchedly short of its aim, depending as it 
does upon an lil-informed and very inadequate estimate of 
the properties of matter. On his knowledge of material 
things and their properties, it would almost be a want of 
charity to expose him. He makes no account of matter be- 
ing of various descriptions, nor of the diversity of effects 
which must follow the operations of things so different as the 
different species of matter. " All bodies," he sagely ob- 
serves, " being equally heavy, it follows necessarily that 
there must be a vacuum !" 

The necessity of the sequence, I confess, I do not distinct- 
ly perceive ; but suppose a vacuum granted, — what then ? — 
that matter does not exist necessarily? Upon a priori prin- 
ciples, the theory of a vacuum was totally uncalled for. We 
can conceive matter not to exist, and that seems quite enough 
for the purpose. The 'purpose, however, goes too far: the 
argument, as already shown, proves too much. If matter is 
to be denied necessary existence because this supposition 
may be made respecting it, where is the single thing that can 
escape the same doom ? Gods and devils, angels and spi- 
rits, heaven and hell, — supposing them all to exist — could 



2% 

have no claim to necessary existence, since it implies no con- 
tradiction to imagine them not to exist. 

The self-existence which depends upon Dr Clarke's neces- 
sity, being thus a mere mathematical chimera, and no where 
to be found — no where in the world of realities—is a proof 
that there is something radically wrong in the argument. If 
such a condition as necessary or self-existence really exists, 
—why can it not be proved ? Why can it not be made 
applicable to the material universe — to substance, the pro- 
perties and operations of substance, and all that results from 
them ? Because in these discussions a proper view of neces- 
sity never seems to have been taken. This is the reason, too, 
why Hume in his essay " Of the Idea of a Necessary Con- 
nexion," and after him, Dr Brown, in his " Observations" 
upon Mr Hume's doctrine concerning the relation of cause 
and effect, have fallen into such strange heresies in philoso- 
phy. In relation to physical subjects, they looked for ma- 
thematical necessity, and if they looked in vain, it is because 
their expectations were not founded in reason or the nature 
of things. This statement I shall now make good, and at the 
same time prove, which is more to the point, that matter is 
possessed of necessary existence. 

That which is necessary, then, I would say, is obviously 
and simply, that which must be; that which is inevitable ; 
that which is impossible not to be. It is useless to talk of 
that which is the contrary of an express contradiction. It is 
surely enough that upon every thing else than what is neces- 
sary, the stamp of impossibility is allowed to be set. Con- 
traries and contradictions only belong to metaphysics and 
geometry. Mankind, however, were conversant with mat- 
ters of common occurrence long before they became mathe- 
maticians or thought of soaring beyond physical things; and 
even yet, how few comparatively know any thing of abstract 
speculation or the use of its language. The usual accepta- 
tion of the word necessity, therefore, must be held the pri- 
mary and essential acceptation ; and that which would cut it 
down to the contrary of a contradiction, secondary and par- 
tial only. There is as absolute a necessity that a piece of 



°23 

wood should burn on being exposed to the action of fire, as 
there is for the equality between twice two and four. I shall 
be told that our ascertainment of the facts in these cases is 
derived from entirely different sources: that although expe- 
rience be requisite in the one case, it is not so in the other ; 
that besides, experience can never prove a thing necessary, — 
because while it is granted that each successive experiment 
increases the probabilities of a result similar to that which 
preceded, no number of probabilities can ever amount to a 
certainty. 

To this I would reply, that the doctrine here laid down 
holds true in matters of chance, (for instance, the throwing 
of dice or the cutting of cards,) because the tendency and 
precision of the agency employed can never be perfectly as- 
certained, and therefore is to be left to the calculation of 
the different probabilities. It is quite otherwise, however, 
in the operations of nature. There, all is fixed and immu- 
table as the truths of geometry themselves. An experiment 
once fairly and fully verified, nothing remains but to adopt 
the result as a determinate principle, from which there can- 
not possibly be the slightest deviation. Suppose a person to 
have been once or twice injured by burning, what should 
even the stickler for mathematical necessity think of this 
person, were he, nevertheless, to proceed upon the ground 
of there being no certainty, — but only a small chance, pro- 
portioned to the number of times he had suffered previously, 
— at any rate, no necessity of his again experiencing pain 
from the application of fire to his flesh? Both in the animal 
economy and in chemistry; — and indeed in every department 
of physical science, — in hydraulics, in electricity, in mecha- 
nics, — the nature and operation of a thing once being deter- 
mined by adequate experience, uniform results are always ac- 
counted necessary. Sometimes, it is readily granted, our an- 
ticipations in these matters are not realized ; that is, an experi- 
ment fails, but what of that ? Would Dr Clarke himself 
have imputed the failure of an experiment to a want of 
stability in the laws of nature? No; but to the mismanage- 
ment of the operator, or else, to a difference in the. causes 



24 



that produced a difference in the effect. This uniform rela- 
tion between cause and effect is what may fairly and pro- 
perly be called physical necessity ; and unless the laws of 
nature be variable and uncertain, that necessity is as abso- 
lute as it is that two and two should be four. 

What now becomes of Dr Clarke's absolute necessity, 
which includes nothing but the reverse of what cannot be 
conceived ? — which rejects as destitute of all meaning, what- 
ever is not the opposite of a mathematical contradiction ? 
We can conceive of a man (or three men as the scripture 
hath it) walking unharmed in the midst of a burning, fiery 
furnace. We can conceive of a man walking upon the fluc- 
tuating surface of the ocean, or mounting into the air — even 
taking a voyage to the moon and dog-star. We can easily 
conceive of hundreds of events running counter to the laws 
of nature ; but do these whimsical and absurd conceptions 
bring the things conceived within the range of possibility ? 
No more than the equally whimsical and absurd conception 
of the non-existence of matter would bring that conception 
within the same range. 

The necessary existence of matter, then — for all that the 
doctor has done to it — rests precisely where it was. It had 
long ago been received as an indisputable doctrine, if not an 
axiom in philosophy, that out of nothing, no thing can come; 
and it has never yet been shown to be essentially incorrect. 
If, therefore, theologians do not relish this doctrine, — if, in 
their eyes, it looks horrible and grim, — they might surely be 
at the trouble of showing that something can be made from 
nothing, and nothing from something, instead of resorting 
to a sly method of getting rid of it by a side-wind. We 
must agree with Clarke, that something must have existed 
from eternity; but the question is, what is this something? 
Whether is it matter of whose existence everything testifies 
in the strongest, the most irresistible manner; or is it an 
aggregate of imaginary perfections, physical as well as moral, 
without a body for their habitation or a medium for their 
existence ? Whether is it something whose existence is a 
matter of knowledge, a matter of absolute certainty, or some- 



%5 



thing of whose existence we know nothing whatever, but is, 
on the contrary, the very thing in question ? 

The necessary existence of anything, — any being, I mean, 
such as matter is, and God is said to be, — is its self- 
existence ; and to prove ft to be self-existent, it is only in- 
cumbent to shew cause why it should be uncreated and 
eternal. Now this has already been done as far as a nega- 
tive view of the question regarding matter makes admissible. 
Another view of it is, that matter is the thing above all 
others absolutely necessary to figure, motion, agency, colour, 
and what not ; that it is the sine qua non of our own exist- 
ence and that of all things else, even the stupendous fabric 
of the universe itself. Take away matter, and you effect the 
taking off of every thing of which we can form the slightest 
idea. All is annihilated except space and duration. Our 
observations on these, however, we must reserve till we come 
to notice the more direct treatment of them in Mr Gillespie's 
argument. 

To close this rather tedious part of the discussion, the 
question of the self-existence of matter may be put in this 
form. — Either it is eternal, or it is not. — If eternal, it is by 
consequence self-existent. If not eternal, it must owe its ex- 
istence to some cause. But to fall upon the latter alterna- 
tive is clearly to beg the question. It is, as is done in the ar- 
gument from final causes, to take for granted the prior exist- 
ence of an agent capable of producing the effect. The ex- 
istence of such an agent, therefore, ought to be fully demon- 
strated before the self-existence of matter can legitimately be 
questioned at all. 



26 



CHAP. III. 

Fallacies of Dr Clarke— continued. 

Dr Clarke's fourth proposition is, " What the substance or 
essence of that being which is self-existent or necessarily exist- 
ing is, we have no idea ; neither is it at all possible for us to 
comprehend it." 

That we can have no knowledge whatever of the deified 
(something which Dr Clarke had here in his eye, — either as to 
essence, substance, or anything else, I most readily and most 
potently believe. That this should be acknowledged by a 
materialist, is nothing strange. But strange it certainly is — 
nay, passing strange ; it surely is ridiculous that the people 
who so stoutly assert the being of a god, and would thrust 
their mystical dogmas down our throat — it is surely absurd 
that these very people, for all their clamour of demonstra- 
tion, — should be reduced to the miserable necessity of ac- 
knowledging that they don't know what it is that they talk 
about. 

What would Dr Clarke himself have said of a person who 
pretended to prove the existence of a something, till then 
unknown in nature, but who could tell nothing about its 
essence, — who could not tell whether it was an animal, a 
mineral, a vegetable ;— whether it was a solid substance, a 
liquid, a gas, or whether it possessed gravity and extension ; 
— and yet gravely declared, that it was impossible ever to find 
out anything of this kind about it ? This, it is true, is to 
take a practical view of the case, — and' although the latter is 
certainly the most eligible way of judging of all such matters, 
we can afford to give the theologian the advantage of any 
sort of argument he may choose to adopt, however inappli- 
cable to the purpose. What, then, does this concession 
make for the theologian in the present instance ? Absolutely 
nothing. If the theological demonstration were thoroughly 



97 



correct, it ought not only to affect the existence, but every 
part of the character of deity ; — his essence, his nature, and 
all his modes of being. Nay, this very knowledge of his 
nature ought to enable us — by means of certain definitions, 
axioms, and canons — to predict, with the utmost exactitude, 
every event in futurity. By the use of points, straight and 
curve lines, &c, we describe (let us say) an equilateral tri- 
angle : but when the description is finished, we perceive pro- 
perties in the figure which enable us to demonstrate its rela- 
tions to other species of the triangle, the quadrangle, the 
circle, sexagon, sphere, cone, and I know not what all else* 
Now r , if a priori reasoning were as available for theological 
as mathematical purposes, the character and essence of the 
thing demonstrated ought to be equally comprehended by 
all who understand the terms in which the demonstration is 
made, and in any way capable of appreciating the results. — 
But, alas ! the essence, the nature, and mode of action of the 
god of our theologues are as yet an enigma, and I fear will 
for ever remain so, notwithstanding all their demonstrations 
respecting him. 

Dr Clarke tries to get out of the difficulty in which he 
here finds himself, by comparing the conduct of the unbe- 
liever in denying the existence of a god, to that of a blind or 
deaf man in denying the existence of colours or sounds. In 
this comparison he commends the latter as infinitely more 
reasonable than the former; for the blind or deaf man, he 
says, can have nothing but testimony for his belief respect- 
ing sounds or colours, whereas the atheist, with the least use 
of his reason, may have " undeniable demonstration" (was 
there ever any other sort?) for the existence of a supreme 
being. Although, however, it were admitted that people de- 
ficient of any of the external senses, had no other evidence 
than testimony for the existence of the objects perceived by 
others through the medium of those senses, the comparison 
would be altogether invalid. Upon what authority do we 
inform a blind man of the existence of colours? Is it not 
upon the authority of evidence which it is not possible he 
can either perceive or understand ? Does the theist, then, 

D 



28 



possess similar advantages over the athiest ? Is he favored 
with the possession of a sixth or a seventh sense, whereby he 
can perceive supernatural things,— a race of new existences, 
with all their associations, — while we remain necessarily and 
irremediably excluded from so noble and enviable a kind of 
perception ? If so, what is that sense, and how is it exer- 
cised ? Although we may be unable completely to under- 
stand a description of it, or fully to appreciate its benefits, 
yet it would surely be but an act of charity to make us aware 
of the helplessness of our condition. If not, why throw a 
slur upon unbelief as though it were as palpable a perversity 
as it is said to be for a blind man to deny the existence of 
colours or a deaf one of sounds ? Our possession of those 
senses of which such unfortunates are destitute, we can easily 
prove to them by a much stronger sort of evidence than tes- 
timony. Let the religious do the same with us, and we shall 
bow to their authority. — The fact of the case is, that those 
who presume to teach, are at least equally blind with those 
they would instruct ; equally ignorant with those over whom 
they would assume such a wonderful superiority. 

As a sort of salvo for the awkwardness of maintaining the 
existence of a thing, of the modes of which he knows nothing, 
the author makes a false statement respecting our ignorance 
of all other things. " There is not," he says, " so mean and 
contemptible a plant or animal, that does not confound the 
most enlarged understanding upon earth ; nay, even the sim- 
plest and plainest of all inanimate beings have their essence 
or substance hidden from us in the deepest and most impe- 
netrable obscurity." Now, what does he mean by a plant or 
animal confounding the most enlarged understanding on 
earth? Does he refer to their essence. or substance? In that 
case, we may reply, that none but the worst informed are ig- 
norant of the constituent principles entering into combina- 
tion in the substance of all animal as well as of vegetable 
bodies. If it be asked what the essence of these principles 
is, of carbon for instance, or any of the fifty or sixty sub- 
stances accounted simple in the present state of chemical 
science, — I would reply, that the question is impertinent. If 



the term essence, or substance, bears reference to anything 
beyond the simple elements of matter, I confess that I do not 
understand its signification, and would be glad to see it de- 
fined. Were water to be resolved into constituents more 
simple than oxygen and hydrogen, and names referred to 
such, it would, I dare say, be still inquired, what is the es- 
sence of these? But let those who carp and cavil about 
essence in this manner (having a more occult reference in 
their eye than to the ultimate principles of things) tell us 
their meaning, and we shall endeavour to meet their most 
searching inquiries upon the subject. 

Taking matter to be the self-existent being, the converse 
of Dr Clarke's fourth proposition is thus fairly made out ; — 
namely, that of its essential principles we certainly have 
some idea. But, at all events, give us something half so sa- 
tisfactory respecting the essence, or substance, or mode of 
the existence of a god, and we shall be perfectly content. 
The very fact of speaking of plants and animals, is a proof 
that we know something of the modifications of matter; — can 
we say as much for those of deity? The very proposition 
under notice settles this question. 

The fifth proposition is, that 66 The self-existent being must 
be eternal '," — -that is, (not that it has existed from eternity, 
for that has already been proved, but) that it must continue 
for ever in existence. This proposition is but very lamely 
supported. As there is no occasion, however, to deny that 
the self-existent being — whatever it may be — is eternal, we 
need not be at the trouble of shewing the misapplication of 
the author's reasoning. 

Dr Clarke's sixth proposition, viz. " That the self-existent 
being must be infinite and omnipotent" rests entirely, as his 
third does, upon a view of Necessity, which has already been 
shewn to be both partial and unphilosophical. It is only 
requisite to observe here, that the argument brought in proof 
of the proposition is exceedingly defective. It is shortly 
this ; — " because something must of necessity be self-existent, 
therefore it is necessary that it must likewise be infinite." 
NJow, although it be indisputable that something must be 



30 



eternal, as it also is, that something must be infinite : the 
something in the one case is not proved to be identical with 
the something in the other ; and as it does not at all follow, 
by consequence, the argument amounts to nothing. To re- 
cur to fact, matter may be regarded as eternal and space in- 
finite. We must, it is true, award both attributes to the 
latter ; but, at same time, we cannot deny to the former that 
which is ascribed to it. Matter, indeed, may be infinite as 
well as self-existent; but if so, it is not because there exists 
between these qualities anything like an indissoluble rela- 
tion. 

Having, in his own estimation, proved the omnipresence 
of the something which has existed from eternity, the author 
hence infers that it " must be a most simple, unchangeable* 
uncorruptible being; without parts, figure, motion, divisibility \ 
or any other such properties as we find in matter." And 
wherefore? Because " all these things do plainly and ne- 
cessarily imply finiteness in their very notion, and are utterly 
inconsistent with complete infinity." This doctrine may be 
essential to a being made up of a heap of abstractions, but 
certainly sounds very strangely when applied to a being such 
as every god is represented. Even Dr Clarke himself speaks 
of his god as a male person, possessed of certain powers and 
moral attributes. If therefore his own language does not 
imply finity, I cannot conceive what does. Does not per- 
sonality imply finiteness ? does not agency imply the same 
thing? But it is endless to follow out this contemptible 
reasoning. It is inconsistent and contradictory, as well as 
absurd. 

The 7th proposition is, " That the self-existent being can be 
but one." " To suppose two or more distinct beings (it is. 
argued) existing of themselves necessarily and independent 
of each other, implies this plain contradiction ; that each of 
them being independent of the other, they may, either of 
them, be supposed to exist alone, so that it will be no con- 
tradiction to imagine the other not to exist, and consequently 
neither of them will be necessarily existing." Here again, 
as in his reasoning upon the third proposition, the reverend 



31 



author places his whole dependence on mathematical Neces- 
sity. But bearing in mind the evident worthlessness of such 
dependence, I would only observe, that it is with the real 
state of things we have to do, and not with mathematical 
contradictions at all. If matter, for instance, as a whole, be 
not allowed to be unique, it follows, from our previous evi- 
dence of its eternity, that there must be at least a plurality of 
self-existent beings. Even although the unity of matter 
were granted, if we are to call space a being, the same con- 
clusion appears to be unavoidable. Unless, indeed, space 
and duration, and the diversity of matter, are to be excluded 
from view (which would be incompatible with a priori prin- 
ciples), this seventh proposition must for ever remain unte- 
nable upon any reasonable grounds. 

Dr Clarke's argument a priori stops here. In his eighth 
proposition, and those following, he had to prove that the 
self-existent being must be intelligent, and all-powerful, and 
a free-agent, and wise, and good, and just, and so forth. 
But this the author clearly perceived could not be made out 
a priori. What, therefore, was to be done ? He had set out 
with undertaking to demonstrate the being and attributes of 
god, and the task could not, of course, be performed with- 
out intelligence and all the rest of it sharing in the demon- 
stration ; — how, then, was he to proceed ? — Even by being 
contented with following the humble course of reasoning 
consequentially instead of necessarily. He begins by carry- 
ing matters with a high hand ; by attempting to make out 
every thing a flat mathematical contradiction that does not 
quadrate with his preconceived theory : he ends by recur- 
ring to the apologetic mode of argument adopted by others 
many hundred years before ! And what does the doctor 
make of all his shifts, — of all his turns to catch the cur- 
rent as it serves, whatever point the wind may be blowing 
from? Nothing at all to boast of: nothing even capable of 
serving as a consolation for having been forced to so hum- 
bling a step, for having employed so crooked and inconsis- 
tent a policy. 

The two arguments of our author, in fact, counteract 



32 



each other. If the first be well-founded, the second cannot; 
and if the second be well-founded, the first cannot. Sup- 
pose he had established the whole of the propositions up to 
the seventh inclusive, we have only a something eternal, in- 
dependent, unchangeable, unique, incomprehensible, and 
everywhere present; whose nonexistence, whose tempo- 
rality, whose dependency, and so forth, cannot be conceived : 
a something, in short, that answers to our notions of space; 
— does that establish the existence of a deity ? Are we to 
call space not merely a being but a god ? To settle this ques- 
tion, we may ask, what are the divine attributes ? Are they 
not, according to the author's own description, an assem- 
blage of all possible perfections, and that, too, if the ex- 
pression be allowable, in an infinite degree ? Can we, then, 
ascribe infinite intelligence, or any intelligence, to such a 
something? Can we ascribe to it infinite power, or any 
power at all? Can we ascribe agency, whether free or not 
free, to that which is immoveable — to that which even ex- 
cludes from the consideration of it the conception of motion 
altogether ? Dr Clarke himself has declared this to be im- 
possible. What, then, does the demonstration amount to ? 
The existence of a mere nonentity. 

On the other hand, taking the author's own absolute ne- 
cessity as the basis of all sound demonstration, and the 
criterion by which we are to try all that assumes this charac- 
ter, — what does he make of the intelligence, and wisdom, 
and goodness, and power of God ? He does not so much 
as pretend that these are necessary to the Something whose 
existence he has demonstrated. — The conclusion, therefore, 
to which we are necessarily driven, is, — either that his ne- 
cessity is good for nothing in the argument — in which case 
his whole demonstration falls to the ground — or that it leaves 
the god of that demonstration without power, without intel- 
ligence, justice, goodness, truth ! ! ! 



S3 



CHAP. IV. 

Fallacies of M?* Richard Jack. 

It would be a fearful task to toil through the dreary wander- 
ings of this ungainly author. In perusing his work, one 
would imagine he had been born with theorems in his head, 
and a rule and compasses in his hands; — and were it not that 
he himself tells us of certain misfortunes which befel him on 
his flight from the Scottish capital, and its rebel occupiers, 
in the memorable year forty-five, we should scarcely have 
thought him susceptible of human passions, or capable of 
taking a share in the concerns of those stirring times. His 
performance is entitled, " Mathematical Principles of Theo- 
logy ; or, the Existence of God geometrically demonstrated, 
in three books." (London^ 1747. Svo. pp. 328.) — Perhaps I 
ought not to notice the work at all : it is of a character so 
prosing, formal, and roundabout. The tactician draws his 
lines of circumvallation at so great a distance from the for- 
tress he purposes to reduce ; his approaches are made so 
tardily, and with so little energy, that we are apt to lose 
patience at his over-precaution, and waste of pains as well as 
time. If all this were a sure precursor of success, we should 
have nothing to complain of; but even his closing positions 
are so ill chosen, as either to be perfectly harmless, or to lie 
entirely at the mercy of the enemy. The book is, neverthe- 
less, a great curiosity. It furnishes the finest specimens 
anywhere to be found, of strict mathematical reasoning as 
applied to theology. It may therefore be amusing, if not 
instructive, to touch upon a few of the author's happiest 
efforts (and those upon the most important points of the 
discussion,) were it only to show the effect even of the 
purest logic, when pressed into the service of the argument 
a priori for the being and attributes of a gcd. 

The first book, consisting of forty-five propositions and 



34 



theorems, is taken up in proving the self-existence of an 
independent being. In the second, an attempt is made to 
demonstrate that that being cannot be matter ; for all vision- 
aries must have a fling at this untractable impediment to 
their motions — this desperate eye-sore to all their specula- 
tions. Mr Jack says, [prop. 41, theor. 40,) — "Matter is a 
dependent being, because that being which can have any 
change or mutation made on any of the powers or properties 
it possesses, is a dependent being; but a change or mutation 
can be made on some of the powers or qualities that matter 
or any material being possesses ; therefore matter is a de- 
pendent being, which was to be demonstrated." — It is to be 
observed, that a dependent being had been previously de- 
fined, a being whose existence is the effect of some other 
being ; so that this syllogism purports to be a demonstration 
of matter having been created out of nothing ! How is 
this ? By what magic is so rare a case made out? I say at 
once, by the shallow, paltry trick of equivocation* The 
subject of the major premiss, which ought to have been 
identical with the predicate of the definition of a dependent 
being previously given, is totally different from it. The de- 
finition, it is true, as applied to matter, involves an impossi- 
bility. Besides taking for granted the existence of some 
agent, unknown and undescribed, its power of bringing 
all material things into existence is asumed. But if the defi- 
nition in question falls, the conclusion that matter is a de- 
pendent being, reaches to its forms only, leaving its inde- 
pendence as to existence untouched. 

Well; but this is theological demonstration. Demonstra- 
tion, certainly, much more easy, and infinitely better adapt- 
ed to the subject in hand, than the vexatious and trouble- 
some process of induction ; by which we are bound to pro- 
duce an agent, and prove the extent of its powers and mode 
of operation — and that too by experience — before we can le- 
gitimately ascribe to it any effect whatever. Here, nothing 
further is necessary than to frame a hypothesis — nothing 
more than to 

* Call some spirit from the vasty deep 



35 



invest it with the attributes in which popular prejudice has 
arrayed the object of its adoration, and by the flourish of a 
conjuring wand, bid matter begone into its assumed original 
nothingness. Mighty magicians ! If our reasoners a priori 
could but tell us where they get the creative power of which 
they speak so much, independent of the thing they go about 
to destroy, they would render their argument somewhat 
more tangible. If they could even tell us of a single change 
effected in matter by means of their pretended agency, the 
information would both be new and directly to the point. — 
But, alas for them ! how should they know anything of a 
being necessarily prior to the existence of the material 
world, — or (supposing such a being) its essence or modus 
operandi ? In any of the numberless changes effected upon 
material bodies, do we see any thing operating except other 
bodies of the same kind ? Can we even conceive of any other 
than material agency ? If aught else than substance operates 
in the mutations observed in physical phenomena, Nature, 
by denying the fact, betrays and belies its god, and science 
and philosophy are left with a heavy account of heresy to 
answer for. 

After having demolished the self-existence of matter, Mr 
Jack proceeds to prove that it owes its existence to his own 
" independent being." As the argument he employs on this 
occasion affects to demonstrate the intelligence of the thing 
referred to in the first book, and is the only one which 
touches upon this highly momentous point, it is the more 
worthy of attention. It is as follows : — 

" The self-existent and independent being does possess a 
self-determining power, or volition, and that self-determin- 
ing pow r er or volition is the cause of the existence of the 
first temporary being." (Book II. prop. 32, theor. 31.) 

" Let A represent the self-existent and independent being, 
B the first temporary being : I say, the self-existing and in- 
dependent being A is possessed of a self-determining power, 
or volition, and that self-determining power or volition, is 
the cause of the existence of the first temporary being B. 
For because the existence of the first temporary being B, is 

E 



36 



the effect that arises from the exertion of some of the powers 
or qualities of the self-existing and independent being A, 
and the cause of the exertion of any power or quality of the 
self-existing and independent being, is a self-determining 
power, that the self-existing and independent being does 
possess ; therefore the cause of the exertion of that power or 
quality of the self-existing and independent being -A, which 
does produce the existence of B, is a self-determining power 
or volition that it does possess, and will be the cause of B's 
existence ; consequently the self-existing and independent 
being A, does possess a self-determining power or volition, 
which self-determining power or volition is the cause of the 
existence of the first temporary being B's existence. There- 
fore the self -existing and independent being does possess a self- 
deter mining power ; which self-determining power is the cause of 
the existence of the first temporary being, which was to be de- 
monstrated. " 

Who can doubt, after so luminous and strictly geometri- 
cal a demonstration, that the creation of a mathematician's 
mind possesses intelligence; that by the simple act of its 
volition it has called all things into existence ? What signi- 
fies it, although the latter be assumed as the effect of the 
former ? What, at least, does it signify, that the introduc- 
tion of one of the factors into the theorem is gratuitous ? 
Surely no one can expect that so trivial an affair as the 
creation of a temporary being by a self-existent one should 
be proved. Do we not see that that fact is brought in as a 
proof of the self-determining power of A, and that this 
power is next made out, in the clearest manner, to be the 
cause of the existence of B? What more than this beautiful 
circle of reasoning does the captious infidel want ? Descartes 
boastfully exclaimed, in the style of Archimedes, — " Give 
me matter and motion, and I will make you a universe;" 
but, with much scantier materials, our new-fangled theorists 
perform a great deal more, — -only give them A and B, and 
they produce you both the universe and its creator ! 

The greatest part of Mr. Jack's theorems, problems, &c. 
&c. consisting of upwards of an hundred in number, is 



41 



substance, is to maintain there is no eternal substance." — 
Now, with reference to matter, this doctrine appears to be 
at variance with fact. No one, it is true, can logically main- 
tain that matter is not infinitely extended ; because that pro- 
cedure would be to engage in the proof of an absolutely 
negative position, which it is impossible to establish. At the 
same time it cannot be denied, that it would be a very hard 
task to bring sufficient evidence in support of a contrary 
affirmation: we cannot prove that it is infinitely extended. 
The fact is, we cannot say whether matter be infinitely ex- 
tended or not. In so far as our experience goes, and our 
observation can carry us, we find substance completely oc- 
cupying every part of space. This shall be shown when we 
come to review Mr Gillespie's notions relative to the divisi- 
bility of matter. We see worlds on worlds and systems 
upon systems, floating around us in all directions, accompa- 
nied by such circumstances as to prove the presence of mat- 
ter to the utmost distance which the best telescopes can 
reach. But what, after all, is the greatest latitude we can 
allow to such distance compared with immensity ? Judging 
from analogy, indeed, we might be ready to conclude even 
the infinity of space to be filled with some substance or 
other. Analogical reasoning, however, is necessarily false, 
consisting, as it does, of applying to one thing the deductions 
of our experience respecting another. It is grossly unphi- 
losophical, therefore, to build any theory or any argument 
upon it. 

Although it be frankly admitted, then, that we neither 
have, nor can have, any knowledge of the infinity of material 
extension, more than we can have of its limits ; that does 
not at all involve a denial of the eternity of matter. We 
perceive a vast universe in existence, but were it only a sin- 
gle atom of matter, no power of man could reduce it to anni- 
hilation, or even conceive of a power capable of producing 
this effect. To suppose, therefore, that matter ever began 
to exist, or to suppose its existence capable of termination, 
is to admit the occurrence of these stupendous effects without 
a cause. This absurdity can only be avoided by assuming 



42 



the existence of some immaterial being acting as an agent in 
the case, — which assumption is a double, if not a threefold 
absurdity. For, first, we have to take for granted the ex- 
istence of what is inconceivable, namely, an immaterial be- 
ing : or else that of some substance exempted, and without 
any reason, from the essential laws of its nature. Next have 
we to endue the supposed being with power sufficient to ac- 
complish (and mark what it is that is to be accomplished) 
the creation or annihilation of matter, — either of which is 
an impossibility. 



CHAP. VI. 

Fallacies of Mr Gillespie— The " Argument." 

This grand argument is laid out in two books. In the first, 
the metaphysico-theologian endeavours to prove that some 
being exists which is the sine qua non of every other thing in 
existence. It consists of three parts, or series of proposi- 
tions, maintaining, first, that Space is this being ; second, 
that Duration is also a being of the same kind ; and, third, 
that these are not different, but identical. The second book 
ascribes to the subject of the forementioned proofs, the di- 
vine attributes of omnipresence, unlimited power, and free- 
dom of agency. 

We cannot afford time— much less can it be expected 
that others should afford patience — both to make a general 
analysis of this argument, and examine the reasonings 
brought up in support of the different parts of it. As, 
therefore, authors are peculiarly jealous of their privileges, 
and tetchy and froward with regard to any freedom used in 
the treatment of their expressions, we shall take the most 
laborious, and, at the same time, least advantageous way of 
combating Mr Gillespie's principles, — book by book, and 
proposition by proposition. This course is the more neces- 
sary, as the argument a priori, unlike that derived from 



48 



experience, depends upon a chain of reasoning, — not upon 
the pointed putting of a single case, or the tautological re- 
petition of a thousand. 

The first proposition, — "Infinity of extension is necessarily 
existing" — it would be absurd in the extreme to deny. No 
more can we imagine any limit prescribable to extension, 
than we can imagine the outside of a house to be in the in- 
side of it. The same unqualified assent, however, cannot be 
accorded to proposition the second; namely, that "Infinity 
of extension is necessarily indivisible" 

Here, the author has given up his abstract necessity, and 
looks for something like experiment as alone capable of sa- 
tisfying him : for, notwithstanding some unmeaning talk, 
intended to explain away this desertion of his own prin- 
ciples, he evidently insists upon a real division — an actual 
separation of parts, with some distance, however little be- 
tween them, as that which he means by divisibility. If Mr 
Gillespie pleads not guilty to this charge, I would ask him 
how mathematicians have always regarded the smallest par- 
ticle of matter divisible to infinity ? Do they ever contem- 
plate actual separation of parts in such cases? No; but 
parts — as Mr. Gillespie himself has it — in the sense of par- 
tial consideration only. When they speak of the hemis- 
pheres of the earth, divided either by the plane of the equa- 
tor, or that passing from the meridian of Greenwich to the 
] 80th degree of longitude, — are they necessarily guilty of 
speaking unintelligibly ? If not, how is it that extension is 
necessarily indivisible ? 

It may be said, perhaps, that although matter is, mentally, 
easy enough to divide, it is impossible to apply the same 
process to extension. But is not the space occupied by the 
earth, — or say, its useful little representation, a twelve or a 
twenty-inch globe,— as easily conceived to be divisible by a 
mathematical plane, as the globe itself, which is not really, 
but only mentally divided ? A mathematical point has no 
dimensions, because whatever possesses dimensions must pos- 
sess figure, and that which has figure cannot be a point. In 
like manner, a plane cannot have thickness, since whatever 

F 



44 



is of the smallest thickness is not a plane but a solid. In 
dividing space by abstraction, therefore, there is no necessity, 
as our author would have us believe, of falling into the ab- 
surdity of space divided by actual separation of the parts, 
leaving no space between them. 

It would be of no great consequence although the second 
proposition were as irrefragable as the first ; for it bears upon 
nothing at all applicable to any being, whether real or ima- 
ginary. But we need not always allow even gratuitous 
fallacies to escape. The exposure, at least, shows the bad- 
ness of the cause that renders the adoption of them neces- 
sary. If Mr Gillespie's indivisibility be understood in an 
abstract sense, his proposition is not true ; if, in reference 
to actual experiment, he may be applauded for having re- 
course to inductive instead of a priori reasoning, he need 
not so soon have neglected the principles upon which he 
started, without intimating some ground for the change. 

A corollary is here introduced, asserting the immoveabi- 
lity of extension. It is true, that either flinty or infinity of 
extension can never be supposed capable of motion. Space 
cannot be carried out of itself, nor can those parts of it oc- 
cupied by Mont Blanc, for example, and the Peak of Tene- 
rifFe, ever be imagined to change places. To the truth of 
what is here maintained, therefore, we must give unreserved 
assent, independent of its nominal connection with the false 
doctrine immediately going before. 

But we now come to a proposition which may be said to 
carry with it all the strength, if it has any, as well as the 
weakness, of Mr Gillespie's " Argument." It is the third 
in number, and announces that " There is necessarily a 
Being of infinity of extension." 

If we had not already seen that the author's reasoning 
leads us to conclude that his Being is to be regarded as 
something substantial, we should have been at a loss what 
to make of the subject of the above predicate. As a logi- 
cian would say, it is not distributed. But if we refer to 
the third division of his introduction, we find him contend- 
ing that the necessary being must be of the character now 



4* 

ascribed to that subject. At the twenty-third section lie 
avows that " It may be laid down as one of those truths 
which admit of no contradiction, that with regard to the 
uncreated substance, at least, virtue (meaning power, I pre- 
sume,) cannot be without substance. Speaking of this sub- 
stance," the author goes on to say, " Sir Isaac Newton hath 
these words," — which may be rendered — " Omnipresence is 
not by power alone, but also by substance; for without sub- 
stance, poiver cannot possibly subsist." 

Not only, however, is the necessary being of Mr Gillespie 
said to be a substance, and therefore by his own and Sir 
Isaac Newton's showing, possessed of virtue or power, but it 
has already been designated, "the intelligent cause of all 
things." I am quite aware, that neither intelligence nor 
power can be demonstrated of any thing a priori, which we 
shall see when this author's reasoning upon those attributes 
fall in our way. We may, nevertheless, in endeavouring 
to bear in mind the description of Being, of whom so 
great things are predicated, avail ourselves of any expres- 
sion of opinion respecting it, that may be scattered through- 
out the work. It is only on this account that I have at pre- 
sent alluded to these after-considerations at all. 

Relative to a Being of this sort, then, — at all events, relative 
to a substantial being, the truth of the predicate is what we 
have now to try. The evidence in support of the third pro- 
position is stated in the form of a dilemma. " Either infinity 
of extension subsists, or, (which is the same thing,) we con- 
ceive it to subsist, without a support or substratum ; or, it 
subsists not, or we conceive it not to subsist, without a sup- 
port or substratum. First, If infinity of extension subsist 
without a substratum, then it is a substance. — Secondly, If 
infinity of extension subsist not without a substratum, then, 
it being a contradiction to deny there is infinity of exten- 
sion, it is a contradiction to deny there is a substratum 
to it." 

% The conclusion deduced from the latter alternative, be- 
sides appearing lame and impotent, is somewhat laughable. 
But allowing its logic to pass, it may be worth while, if only 



46 



for amusement, to try the force of this, the negative horn of 
the dilemma, by ascertaining what it is made of. — The pri- 
mary signification of the word substratum is, a thing lying 
under something else. Supposing, for instance, a bed of 
gravel to lie under the soil, gravel is the substratum of that 
soil ; if there be sandstone below that, the sandstone is the 
substratum of the gravel ; if coal be found beneath the rock, 
coal is the substratum of it, and so on as far as we can pe- 
netrate. To say, therefore, that space must have a substra- 
tum, is nothing less than saying that it must have something 
to rest upon ; something to hold it up. That is,- — Space 
must have limits ; and there must be something in existence 
beyond its limits to keep it from falling — out of itself ! If 
this be not the acme of absurdity, a ship falling overboard, 
as our sailors' jest goes, is no longer a joke ; and the clown 
who boasted that he could swallow himself, boasted of no- 
thing that he might not be reasonably be expected to per- 
form. 

Should it be contended that the term ought to be under- 
stood in its secondary acceptation, and that the substratum 
of the infinity of extension subsists within itself, as any ma- 
terial body is said to be the substratum of its own extension : 
— I would remark, that we know of nothing possessing ex- 
tension except matter, — nothing else that can stand as an 
object to which extension may be ascribed as a property ; 
and that matter, not existing by mathematical, but only by 
physical necessity, cannot be the substratum referred to. 
Hence it is evident that, in material bodies, comprising all that 
we do know, or can know of Being, it is impossible to find 
anything that will serve Mr Gillespie's purpose. Even this 
impossibility overlooked, however, what is it that next meets 
our view ? — One substance occupying infinite extension, and 
another occupying part of this extension, if not also the whole 
of it ; in other words, two things at the same time occupying 
the same space. Theology always entangles its advocates in 
inextricable absurdities. 

A religious friend who has corresponded with me upon 
this point, alleges that the substance of the substratum of in- 



47 



finite extension is not material ; but this is mere babble; 
something he has been taught to repeat, — not the dictate of 
his sounder judgment. Substance and matter are the same. 
The words are synonymous and convertible. When used 
otherwise they become unintelligible ; inasmuch as we might 
then talk of an unsubstantial substance and immaterial 
matter. 

But, to refer to the first proposition, — has it not been de- 
monstrated that infinity of extension exists necessarily ? — 
that it exists, per se, by the most abstract and metaphysical 
necessity? In what sort of predicament, then, must that 
reasoning appear, which gives up a leading and universally 
admitted truth by placing it in a questionable position ? Mr 
Gillespie's dilemma recognises, at least, the possibility of in- 
finite extension requiring a substratum to support it — infi- 
nite extension, which is itself necessary ! How is this ? Was 
it found that although space possessed a few of the divine 
attributes, it did not possess all, nor anything like all that 
were deemed needful to constitute a respectable deity ? Not- 
withstanding appearances, I should hope not. But, at any 
rate, we are again landed in a quagmire of absurdity — the 
absurdity of supposing a thing to be dependent and inde- 
pendent at the same time. If space must be conceived 
a priori necessary, to talk of a substratum being necessary in 
the same sense of the word is nonsense : on the other 
hand, if it stands in need of a substratum, the foundation 
stone of this great argument must crumble into dust, and be 
unfit to serve as a substratum to anything. 

But if we are dissatisfied with the author's substratum, we 
are not much better situated with the alternative left us ; for 
according to the dilemma he has imposed upon us, we are 
obliged to conclude that infinity of existence is itself a sub- 
stance. I had thought infinity a mere nominal adjunct al- 
lowed to space, from the circumstance of our being unable 
to conceive limits to its extent; but the theist, it seems, 
thinks otherwise. Infinity, with him, must be a substance. 
On the same ground, we might contend that finity is a sub- 
stance too. Supposing, however, that space infinitely ex- 



48 



tended is what he means, all that we can say is, that if it be 
a substance it is no longer space, or extension, or any thing 
else than, — just a substance; — unless it may be both exten- 
sion and substance at the same moment. But these are pro- 
fane thoughts. Perhaps according to the new school of 
theology, not only may a book be a substance, but its exten- 
sion may also be a substance, its weight another, its colour 
a third, and so forth. Let us hear, however, how the divine 
theory of infinity of extension being a substance is to be sus- 
tained. — Mark with what boldness of reasoning it is brought 
out. The infidel must look well to his footing and points 
of defence, lest he be laid prostrate by its overwhelming 
force. 

" If any one should deny that it is a substance, it so sub- 
sisting;" (that is, without a support or substratum,) "to 
prove beyond contradiction the utter absurdity of such de- 
nial, we have but to defy him to show why infinity of exten- 
sion is not a substance, so far forth as it can subsist by itself 
or without a substratum." 

A new era has thus dawned upon logic. A grand dis- 
covery is on the eve of rendering her power irresistible, and 
her reign everlasting and glorious. It is to be henceforth no 
longer necessary for us to prove an affirmative : assert what 
we may, no one dare deny our assertions. For to prove be- 
yond contradiction the utter absurdity of such denial, we 
have only to put a brave face on it, and throw a defiance in 
the teeth of our opponent to prove the negative. 

But waiving, in the meantime, our plea of want of evi- 
dence for the affirmative, a simple man would say in relation 
to the case before us, that substance possesses attraction, 
which extension does not; that it is observed under a thou- 
sand varieties of figure, density, - colour, motion, taste, 
odour, combustion, crystalization, &c. which neither exten- 
sion nor infinity ever is, or can in its nature be. He might, 
in his deplorable ignorance, ask if ever infinity was weighed, 
or extension analyzed and its elements reduced to gas ? 
This would, I dare say, only evince in the eyes of the theo- 
logian, that such a person had no idea of the very conveni- 



49 



ent art of applying metaphysical language to things phy- 
sical; whereby a mere abstraction, or at most a property of 
something else, can so easily be charmed into a reality. His 
showing why infinity of extension is not a substance, there- 
fore, would be set down as grovelling and common-place, 
and, by consequence, useless. 

After all, however, how does the notable proposition 
stand, that there is necessarily a Being of infinity of exten- 
sion ? The principle of the argument brought up in support 
of it — the dilemma, in short — gives way on every side. It 
stands without a vestige of backing, except from the vain 
and swelling words of a blustering defiance, the value of 
which no one but a fool could be at a loss to estimate. 

The author himself, indeed, seems not half sure of having 
made good the doctrine he has announced : for after having 
done all he could do, by the foisting in of a substratum 
upon extension to the destruction of its necessary existence, 
— he comforts himself with the reflection, that it is of very 
little consequence whether men will or will not consent to 
call this substratum by the name of being or substance, be- 
cause " 'tis certain that the word substance or being, has never 
been employed, can never be employed, to stand for any- 
thing more, at least, than the substratum of infinity of exten- 
sion." It is, of course, of no manner of importance whether 
men consent to do what they always have done and must 
continue to do, or whether they will not. But how far is the 
because and its certainty consistent with the lurking suspi- 
cion of the honoured name of Being or substance being 
refused to his unsupported substratum ? Yet, on the very 
heels of this misgiving, he concludes, — "There is, theti, ne- 
cessarily, a Being of infinity of extension." The worthy 
old father of the church, who declared his belief of a chris- 
tian dogma because it was impossible, is not far from having 
a logician of the mathematical school to keep him in coun- 
tenance. Mr Gillespie frames a most absolute conclusion 
with his premises dubiously faltering on his lips. 



50 



CHAP. VII. 

Fallacies of Mr Gillespie — The " Argument" continued. 

The fourth proposition of this argument — that " the being 
of infinity of extension is necessarily of unity and simplicity" 
— is founded upon the baseless fabric of extension being 
indivisible ; of its being in itself a substance, or requiring a 
substratum to support it. There is a scholium attached to 
it, however, which we must not entirely lose sight of. It is 
levelled against the unity and simplicity, and by consequence 
(as the author thinks) the infinity of the material universe. 
It is not that I conceive the conclusion of this scholium es- 
sential to a right view of the eternity of matter, or even the 
question of the existence of a god, far less that the pre- 
mises are so, that I make any observations upon either. 
The self-existence of matter stands high above the reach of 
the argument a priori; but it is surely more direct and pro- 
per to expose the weakness of that argument, than allow it 
to retain a reputation for close and rigid reasoning which it 
does not at all merit. In the present instance, as in all 
others, there is not a single position taken in hostility to an- 
titheistical principles, that will not also be found hostile, 
either to physical science or sound philosophy. 

To be the substratum of the infinity of extension, is held 
to be indispensable in the self-existent substance. This is 
the principle here adopted ; but in reply to a similar theory 
in Dr Clarke's " Demonstration," it has been shown to be con- 
trary to reason and the nature of things. Upon that point, 
therefore, we are not now going to contend. It is upon the 
doctrine of matter being finite in extension. 

" To put to the proof," says Mr Gillespie, " whether or 
not the material universe can be such substratum, we have 
but to ask, are the parts of the material universe divisible 



M 



from each other ? and are they moveable among them- 
selves ? — for if they be so divisible, if so moveable, then 
the material universe cannot be the substratum of infinity of 
extension." 

That matter is divisible, (on a certain and special con- 
struction of terms,) no one will deny; but that it is abso- 
lutely so, is not true. We can divide substance by abstrac- 
tion as we divide space. If it be of any specific body we 
speak, we can, in reality, separate one part from another. 
This, however, is not absolutely to divide matter. In the 
discussion of his second proposition, the author makes 
manifest the absurdity of supposing space really divisible, 
since that would be to suppose the parts separated without 
having any space between them. Now, in the same sense of 
divisibility, matter is not more subject to it than space. I 
grant that we may conceive of an absolute separation of sub- 
stance general^, which we cannot do in the case of exten- 
sion. But that is not the question. It is real and generic 
separation we have in view. The houses on opposite sides 
of a street stand separate ; is that to say, however, that 
there is no substance between them ? Is it not childish to 
suppose, that by cutting an apple in two, we have actually 
divided matter so as to leave nothing of a material kind be- 
tween the parts of the fruit ? It is quite common to say, a 
bottle is empty, after the liquor it contained has been poured 
out ; and this may be a convenient enough way of expressing 
ourselves when we have little else than eatables and drink- 
ables to talk of ; but is a vessel in this case really empty ? is 
it completely exhausted of all kind of substance ? 

But we may as well go into the hypothesis of a vacuum at 
once, for to this point the argument obviously tends. What, 
then, is a vacuum ? It is space, I presume, without any 
matter being present at all. Is such a state of things, how- 
ever, anywhere to be found ? I think not, and that it does 
not appear possible to find it. What is commonly called a 
vacuum, is only a part of space, say the interior of a re- 
ceiver deprived, in a great measure, of atmospheric air. 
The extraction of the atmosphere, be it observed, is never 

G 



52 

completely effected. Ia the use of the pneumatic pump, 
each succeeding stroke only brings off a certain proportion 
of what the receiver contains — say one-half — so that the resi- 
due being never more than half taken away, the most con- 
stant application of the best constructed machine can never 
make the exclusion of the air perfect. Even in the Torri- 
cellian operation, the alleged perfection of the vacuum de- 
pends upon the crude notion of there being neither air nor 
pores in the fluid by which it is formed, which is not the fact. 
Yet, after all, supposing the air entirely shut out, is there no 
other species of matter left behind? Where is light, and 
where heat? As light, however, may be excluded to a con- 
siderable extent, I would only ask whether heat be a sub- 
stance or only a property of substance ? Taking the thing 
at the worst, the presence of heat indicates, of course, the 
presence of some substance, of which it is, in such instance, 
a property. This conclusion is inevitable, unless a quality of 
a thing may be present, where the thing itself is not. It 
must here be remembered, that the greatest degree of cold 
ever experienced, only indicates a lower degree of heat than 
had previously been known — not that it is impossible for the 
amount of heat to be further reduced. 

Should it be demanded — as it is always commendable to 
do on such occasions — what the substance is which we deem 
to be present in what is usually denominated a vacuum, — we 
may reply — the electric fluid. No substance is capable of 
excluding it. As water seeks its level, the fluid in question 
presses everywhere, that it may be everywhere present; and 
with this tendency, it penetrates, in a manner the most irre- 
sistible, every thing that can be opposed to its course. 

The notion of there being a vacuum in nature, is as idle as 
the attempt to prove one by artificial means. The demon- 
stration cannot, in any case, succeed. Some of our astrono- 
mers, particularly of the Newtonian sect, were obliged in a 
manner to adopt this doctrine, in order to back out their 
theological assumptions. They supposed the planets to have 
been hurled from the hand of a god, like bowls by a game- 
ster, and that no new impetus of a supernatural kind being 



53 



observed, the motion of these vast bodies must be perpetu- 
ally retarded, unless a perfect vacuum had been wisely pro- 
vided for them to revolve in. But the dogma is now scat- 
tered to the winds, The single phenomenon of comets 
describing, at each successive revolution, progressively 
diminished orbits, settles the point. Were there no sub- 
stance present to resist their motion, we must conclude, upon 
the principles of the truly great Newton, that the centrifugal 
force would necessarily and for ever counterbalance the 
attractive. 

There is, however, more extensive evidence than this. 
Among the sublime discoveries which have rendered the 
name of Herschel illustrious, none is more sadly interesting, 
than that of a prevailing tendency to contraction observed in 
the multitudinous systems of the universe. In the nebulae — 
in the Magellanic clouds — and even the milky way, the same 
unceasing compression is observed, and of course the 
same evidence is offered of the presence of a resisting me- 
dium. 

The contemplation of this probable, though remote con- 
summation of all existing relations, may excuse a remark or 
two relative to an infinite series of beings. If secondary 
planets are ultimately destined to fall in upon their primaries, 
and these together upon the central bodies to which they are 
subordinate, changes upon a vast scale must result, and new 
formations follow. The laws occasioning these changes, 
acting eternally, must be the source of eternal revolutions. 
Where, then, in these circumstances, are we to look for a 
beginning? In the most unceasing endeavours we may 
make to reach the starting point of nature's operations, we 
shall find our labours vain ; and every attempt of this sort 
as completely foiled as in seeking for their end. 

Although, however, we were fully warranted in rejecting 
the system of change which brought along with it these 
gloomy forebodings, of all the greatness and glory of man 
being sunk in everlasting forgetfulness — although it were 
argued, and that successfully, that the deductions made from 
the data stated regarding the ethereal fluid are yet undeter- 



54 



mined, — we are not left without ample grounds, in as far as 
our researches reach, for holding the doctrine of a plenum. 
Wherever we turn our eyes, we observe matter in existence. 
Beyond the sphere of human observation we know nothing. 
If science cannot demonstrate that matter is infinite in ex- 
tension, much less can Mr Gillespie demonstrate that it is 
not so. His conclusion, therefore, falls to the ground. 

I need say little, I dare say, respecting the argument 
derived from the motion of material bodies : it amounts to 
nothing. The different parts of matter only change places ; 
unless, therefore, substance lose its extension, — nay, its 
very existence — by being moved, there can be no foundation 
for detracting from its extension, finite or infinite, on that 
account. 

I have thus gone more fully than I intended, or even an- 
ticipated, into an examination of the scholium to Mr Gil- 
lespie's fourth proposition. The sum and substance of it is 
this — (and indeed it is but a contemptible fallacy) — Because 
matter does not agree in character and properties with a 
mere abstraction, — that is, because it is not what it is not — it 
cannot be the substratum of infinite extension; it cannot be 
the sine qua non of all things ; it cannot be the self-existent 
being ! 

Upon the fifth and last proposition of this part of the 
work, that " there is necessarily but one being of infinity of 
expansion," it is hardly worth our pains to remark. The 
existence of Mr Gillespie's being of infinity of extension 
having failed under proof, any consideration relative to its 
supposed exclusiveness of all other necessary existences, 
cannot be of much avail. Even admitting his substratum of 
space, however, why may there not be two, or twenty, as 
well as one ? No reason can be assigned why infinity of ex- 
pansion (which the author now appropriates to space, as he 
does extension to matter,) should have an immaterial some- 
thing to keep it in existence, that would not prove that that 
something should have something else to keep it in existence 
as well. 

But it is needless to fight with shadows which may be 



55 



raised as fast as they are demolished. They are the illusions 
of a subtle imagination, fabricated to support what cannot be 
maintained on fair and tangible grounds. The supposition 
of a plurality of necessary beings, against which our theorist 
so strongly inveighs, springs from his own theogonal geo- 
logy. This spurious, this imaginary sort of science, should 
either not have been resorted to, or no objection should be 
taken to its inevitable consequences. 



CHAP. VIII. 

False Reasoning of Mr Gillespie ; Second Part of his Work, 

The second part of the work before us, approaches as near 
as possible to similarity with the first, " Infinity of dura- 
tion is necessarily existing ; infinity of duration is necessarily 
indivisible ; infinity of duration is necessarily immoveable ; 
there is necessarily a being of infinity of duration : the being 
of infinity of duration is necessarily of unity and simplicity ; 
there is necessarily but one being of infinity of duration." — 
These are the propositions— these the dogmas that are now 
brought forward for discussion. And wherein do they differ 
from those already examined and exploded ? In nothing but 
the substitution of infinity of duration for that of extension. 
The same process is repeated ; the same reasoning gone 
through, almost to the very letter. 

It may have been necessary, from the method of demon- 
stration adopted, to come over the same ground and reiter- 
ate the same deductions on the slightest alteration in the 
subject of proof. As in mathematical affairs the validity of 
the argument a priori may depend upon the minuteness and 
accuracy of detail, regardless of the repulsiveness of a slavish 
tautology. There is no reason, however, why we should 
follow so uninviting an example. It will be sufficient to 
show that the refutation of the doctrines sought to be esta- 



56 



blished in the former case, applies with equal force to those 
propounded in the latter. 

To effect this application cannot be hard to accomplish. 
If, indeed, there be any difference between the author's 
reasoning in the different parts, it is worse in the second 
than the first. Although extension may be conceived of as 
a pure abstraction, it is also conceivable as one of the pro- 
perties, if not the only indispensible property of matter. 
But can we entertain any such notion respecting duration? 
Who ever heard of duration being a property of matter? 
Upon the hypothesis of substance being infinitely extended, 
we may regard it as " the substratum of infinity of exten- 
sion ;" at least we understand what is meant by such a cir- 
cumstance being predicated of substance. But how are we 
to understand what is meant by anything being the substra- 
tum of the infinity of duration? Yet that something is such 
a substratum is what is broadly declared to be the fact. — 
This is what we are unhesitatingly required to admit, or else 
give in to the monstrous proposition, that duration is itself a 
substance ! 

If the author will consult " An Analysis of the Phenomena 
of the Human Mind," published some few years ago by Mr 
Mill, he will find even the first proposition relative to dura- 
tion questioned by that philosopher. We cannot indeed 
suppose duration to have had a commencement, nor imagine 
a termination for it ; but the writer whose name has been 
mentioned, concludes that the past being already out of ex- 
istence, and the future not being yet in existence, there can 
be no duration in existence at all. To consider the matter 
thus, is perhaps to consider it too curiously ; for whatever is 
done, even what may require the labour of an age to effect, is 
done in the successive instants of time as they pass, however 
minute those instants may be reckoned, and however, as of 
course they must proportionably be, rapid in their succes- 
sion. All that I would infer is, that infinity of time, if not 
more an abstract consideration than infinite space, is at all 
events fully as much so. 

Why then should duration have a substratum or support 



57 



for its existence ? Why suppose that it cannot exist of itself 
and independently of all substance ? Or, making this sup- 
position, why lay down as a fundamental principle, the abso- 
lute and metaphysically necessary existence of infinity of du- 
ration ? To reconcile these suppositions is essential to the 
validity of Mr Gillespie's argument; but is there any way of 
reconciling them ? The thing is impossible. 

But about duration, or, as the author has it, infinity of 
duration being a substance — what could have driven him to 
a hypothesis so outrageously extravagant ? Nothing, I am 
persuaded, but the sheer desperation of a dauntless advocate 
in a sinking cause. I do not mean that at the present day 
theism is going down — perhaps it may never go down ; for it 
is wondrously well borne up by the inflated supports of pas- 
sion, self-interest, and prejudice, which preserve it from its 
otherwise certain fate. All I mean is, that casting aside its 
unworthy, yet popular dependencies, and relying on reason 
alone, — not the best argument in all the moods and figures 
of the schools, could keep it from finding the bottom. 

If duration were substantial, it would have to be a series 
of substances, and so resemble the ghosts in Macbeth's vi- 
sion, — another and another coming into view and passing 
out in quick succession — till we should be glad to get quit of 
the phantoms, and exclaim with the tyrant, " I'll see no 
more." How else should we have any notion of what is in- 
dicated by the substance of duration ? Can we conceive of a 
substance to be in existence and out of existence at the same 
time ? If not, we may take leave to ask if the substance of 
any part of duration already past be yet in being, while ac- 
cording to our vulgar conceptions, unsubstantial duration 
itself is not ? Or can we recal the hours of yesterday, and 
constantly grow younger instead of growing old? — But it is 
in vain to attempt reducing the vagaries of a subtle imagina- 
tion to consistency, or the order of natural relations. Our 
endeavours not unfrequently involve us in a labyrinth of the 
theoretical absurdities we would thereby unravel. We might 
go on, by way of illustration, to suppose motion a substance, 
— and figure, and colour, and all the rest of it ; or to con- 



58 



tend that duration was of a particular density, or bore the 
shape of an aged man with an hour-glass and scythe. The 
shorter way, however, is to conclude at once, that when du- 
ration becomes a substance it ceases to be duration. 

In supporting the unity and simplicity of the being of in- 
finite duration, an argument is introduced in scholium first to 
the fourth proposition, going to show, that a succession of 
beings cannot be the subject of what is there predicated. 
The reason assigned for this deduction is, that the parts of 
the succession are divisible from each other, and moveable 
among themselves. Now, this is what may be called hunt- 
ing in a wrong scent, or reasoning according to the 
fallacy logically denominated ignoratio elenchi ; for the 
separation of things from each other, as well as their 
motions, relate to space, and not to duration at all. If, 
indeed, it could be made to appear that a cause could 
be separated at pleasure from its effect; say, the report 
of a piece of ordnance from the explosion of the charge, it 
would be something to the point. It would be showing, at 
any rate, that, in as far as duration was concerned, a separa- 
tion between the parts of a succession, might actually take 
place, — to which the argument in hand has no reference. 
This would be a most convenient discovery ; as, upon the 
most distant intimation of any impending calamity, we might 
possibly divide the effect so far in the order of time from the 
cause, as to keep ourselves clear of the consequences. A ball 
fired at a man might, in all likelihood, be arrested in its pro- 
gress without the assistance of Father Murphy, who was an 
adept in these matters ; or, even after being shot through 
the head, he might be prevented from suffering any mischief 
till it was found convenient to allow the parts of the succes- 
sion of events thus separated, to close. This brings to our 
remembrance the curious fact of Dean Swift having put off 
a lunar eclipse for twenty-four hours or better, because he 
was too unwell at the time to describe it to some of his coun- 
try friends ; or the poet's description of the lion — 

" Who look'd so horrible and wondrous grim, 
That his own shadow durst not follow him." 



59 



Of the same nonsensical character is the idea of motion 
among the parts of a succession. If the motion relates to 
duration or the order of time, a son may exist antecedent to 
his father ; a plant previous to the seed from which it sprung; 
and all the agents employed in the production either of na- 
ture or art, after these same productions, or thousands of 
years before them. Caesar and Napoleon, with their re- 
spective eras, may be made to change places, or perhaps 
made not yet to have been brought into existence. — But — 
something too much of this. If the argument have reference 
to the division and motion of things in space, it is too blun- 
dering for serious consideration; if to the divisibility and 
moveability of things and events as relative to duration, it is 
too absurd. 



CHAP. IX. 

Fallaciousness of the third part of Mr Gillespie's 
" Argument." 

There is very little to be met with, so curious in its rea- 
soning, as this part of the "Argument." We have seen 
that the first pretends to prove the existence of a being of 
infinite extension, and the second that of a being of infinite 
duration. In the present instance, these hypothetical beings 
are attempted to be made out, not different, but iden- 
tical. 

In one sense, it is true, we should have little objection to 
the doctrine here inculcated. Matter, for example, is cer- 
tainly eternal ; and on the ground of there being no vacuum 
in any part of space, it must be regarded as infinite in ex- 
tension ; and hence we have a being whose extent and dura- 
tion both reach to infinity. But matter would not there- 
fore be the substratum either of the one or the other: that 
is to say, it is not necessary — not absolutely necessary — that 

H 



60 



even extension, or space, should have any substratum or 
support to its existence whatever ; and in respect of duration} 
I cannot comprehend what a substratum of it means. This 
employment of language in an acceptation beyond the reach 
of our comprehension, is an adequate reason, according to 
the authority of common sense, and of Mr Gillespie too, 
for the rejection of the reasoning depending upon it. What- 
ever may be signified by the word, however, it must be some- 
thing different from matter, since duration does not depend 
on matter for its existence. 

But the author's « Being of infinity of expansion and 
infinity of duration" does not suit this plain and rational 
view of the subject. Taking the substratum of extension to 
be nothing more than the thing or substance extended, 
(without regard to mathematical necessity in the matter,) we 
can only see room for one, while Mr Gillespie introduces 
two, and then amalgamates them into unity. 

" Either infinity of expansion subsists by itself," says he, 
" and then it is a being : and infinity of duration subsists by 
itself, and then it is a being ; or, infinity of expansion sub- 
sists not without a substratum or being ; and infinity of dura- 
tion subsists not without a substratum or being. 

" First, Every part of infinity of expansion is in every 
part of infinity of duration ; that is, every part of the being 
of infinity of expansion, is in every part of the being of 
infinity of duration ; part in all the cases, in the sense of 
partial consideration only. — -To wit, the whole of the being 
of infinity of expansion, is in the whole of the being of in- 
finity of duration : whole, but as a figure. And this being, 
most manifestly, impossible, if the being of infinity of ex- 
pansion and the being of infinity of duration be different: it 
necessarily follows that they are identical. 

" Then, secondly, infinity of expansion subsists not without 
a substratum or being ; and infinity of duration subsists not 
without a substratum or being. And as every part of infinity 
of expansion is in every part of infinity of duration ; therefore 
every part of the substratum of infinity of expansion is in 
every part of the substratum of the infinity of duration, &c. 



61 



That is, the whole of the substratum of infinity of expansion, 
is in the whole of the substratum of infinity of duration. 
And this being most manifestly impossible, if the substratum 
or being of infinity of expansion, and the substratum or being 
of infinity of duration, be different; it follows necessarily 
that they are identical ; to wit, the substratum or being of 
infinity of expansion, is also the substratum or being of in- 
finity of duration," &c. &c. 

The sum and substance of all this technical argumenta- 
tion, is, that a plurality of substances possessing any kind of 
infinity, cannot coexist ; but expansion and duration having 
each a substratum, they may be reduced to one, which can 
be made to serve for both. Now, supposing Mr Gillespie to 
have proved the existence of his substrata, it does not appear 
that the principle upon which he builds his conclusion is 
correct. For if we cannot conceive any limit either to dura- 
tion or space, they must equally be infinite. But there is 
nothing absurd in holding these two infinities to exist to- 
gether ; and why? Because they are of totally different 
kinds. They are as different as time and place, which peo- 
ple, in their most common intercourse, regard as entirely 
distinct. Indeed, these infinities are nothing else than time 
and place extended beyond all bounds. The latter is com- 
plete ; is always open to our survey ; and in as far as the 
mind can grasp it, it remains at all times within our review. 
But the former is essentially evanescent, for even while yet 
speaking of time, it has already fled, — a new portion come 
into existence and again gone out. Duration never can be 
complete ; we never can recal the past, and the future, as 
such, is eternally the future. 

If therefore the infinity of duration and that of expansion 
be so dissimilar in their nature as not to clash or be in the 
slightest degree incompatible — why should not their sub- 
strata be equally different and equally independent of each 
other ? Any argument that should prove the infinities spe- 
cified to be distinct in their character, ought to prove their 
substances no less distinct: and that which should make out 
the identity of substance in such cases, ought in like manner 



62 



to make out the complete identity of the abstractions to 
which they belong. It will hardly do to tell us, that every 
part of the substratum of infinite expansion is in every part 
of the substratum of infinite duration, because this is not 
exactly the fact. Although (to shorten and familiarise the 
phraseology, which, without seeking any advantage from it, 
we have occasionally done,) space has existed in every point 
of time already past, it does not now exist in bygone dura- 
tion, but only in what is present, and never can be supposed 
to overtake the future. 

This doctrine, however, would not quadrate with Mr 
Gillespie's theory. It involves, according to his own de- 
ductions, the existence of at least two infinite and independ- 
ent beings, which is by half too many for his purpose. 
Hence, the inconvenience — the obtrusive redundancy was to 
be got rid of on any terms and at all hazards ; and hence 
has evidently been adopted, the awkward scheme of amalga- 
mating the substrata of space and duration, and mak- 
ing only one of them, for which there seems to be as little 
necessity as there is for the existence of the substrata them- 
selves. 

Besides, — what are we to make of another coexistence of 
substances, which does not appear to have suggested itself 
to the author's mind ? To his own thinking, he has made 
out but one substance or being of infinite expansion and du- 
ration, but how is he to dispose of the actual existence of 
matter? The want of mathematical necessity for its exist- 
ence is not sufficient to strike it out of the category of pre- 
sent existences. To render the argument of any avail, the 
ideal system of the bishop of Cloyne ought to have been in- 
corporated with it ; for even with Mr Gillespie's one infinite 
substance, the real existence of matter brings along with it 
what he is so much afraid of — namely, the absurdity of two 
beings at the same time occupying the same space. On this 
ground let it be remembered that it is not requisite we 
should demonstrate the infinite extension of the material 
universe. In as far as it does extend, it occupies space ; and, 
the infinitely extended substance occupying, of course, the 



63 



whole of space, must occupy that of the material universe as 
well as any other, — if any other there be. 

Let us suppose for a moment, the being of a substance of 
infinite expansion, the intelligent agent in the production of 
all things — and all this is contended for in the " Argument" 
— what was it to do when performing the miraculous and 
incomprehensible feat of creating the universe out of no- 
thing ? Was it to annihilate so much of its own substance 
as would be necessary to make room for matter, in order to 
give it verge and scope enough ? If not, either matter could 
not be brought into being, or we must suffer ourselves to be 
driven to the conclusion already shown to be necessary in 
admitting the very palpable doctrine of the actual existence 
of matter. 

The orthodox dogma of the immateriality of god — what- 
ever may be the other difficulties it has to contend with — has 
this advantage, that it brings not two substances into a com- 
pound occupancy of space. But independent of this advan- 
tage, it does not pile stratum super stratum, Pelion upon 
Ossa, and then contend that after all, they are of perfect 
unity and simplicity : that they cannot be divided even in 
thought, while the greatest pains are in the act of being 
taken in order to bring us to consider them in a different 
light. 

But here, perhaps, I have gone somewhat too far ; for 
upon second thoughts it strikes me that there is not a little 
analogy between Mr Gillespie's system and the orthodox. 
In the one case we have three substances in the godhead ; in 
the other, two. In both, the substances are held to be one 
and indivisible, the same in essence, equal in power and 
glory. No less than the old dogma, is the new one entitled 
to the most implicit credit, and to rank high among the sa- 
cred mysteries. It might very effectively, indeed, be made 
to serve as the basis of a confession of faith, as pompous and 
anathemal as the creed of saint Athanasius. " If any man 
would be a sound theist," it might run, " he must above all 
things believe in the mystery of the dual-unity. Now the 
mystery of the dual-unity is this, that there are two beings 



64 



in one being, and one being in two beings. Extension is 
necessarily existent, and duration is necessarily existent, yet 
there are not two necessary existents, but one necessary 
existent. Extension is infinite, and duration is infinite, yet 
there are not two infinites, but one infinite. Infinity of ex- 
tension has a support or substratum, or is itself a sub- 
stance; and infinity of duration has a support or substra- 
tum, or is itself a substance; yet there are not two 
substrata or substances, but one substratum or substance. 
The substratum of infinity of expansion is of unity and sim- 
plicity, and the substratum of infinity of duration is of unity 
and simplicity ; yet there are not two unities and simplicities, 
but one unity and simplicity. The substratum of infinity of 
expansion is but one, and the substratum of infinity of 
duration is but one, yet there are not two ones, but one 
one." 

This would sound well, and give a gorgeous finish to the 
first Book of Mr Gillespie's work ; and if it had an appro- 
priate sprinkling of vivid denunciation against unbelievers, it 
would be all the more characteristic for the addition, and 
perhaps the more authoritative too ; for as it stands, the 
system is destitute of rational support of any kind; and I 
dare say it will be confessed that for a theologian to have 
any backing at all, is better than to have none. 



65 



9 

CHAP. X. 

Mr Gillespie's Second Book — A Departure from his own 
" Argument' 1 

Mr Gillespie professes to establish a proof of the being 
and attributes of God a priori. It is only through the first 
grand division of his work, however, that he is able to keep 
it up : in the second Book, as it is called, he deviates en- 
tirely from that line of argument. But this is the fault more 
of subject than of the author. The points contended for, 
are, " the one simple being of infinity of expansion and du- 
ration is necessarily intelligent and all-knowing f that it is 
" necessarily all-powerful," and " necessarily free." Now, 
it will not be any way difficult to show, that these attributes 
are not, and cannot be, proved in the manner announced in 
the title-page of this author's performance. 

First, The principles laid down in his reasonings for the 
necessary intelligence, power, and freedom of deity, are 
founded in experience ; and next — as by consequence it 
must follow — these principles cannot be brought within the 
range of the general argument. 

" There is intelligence." This is the way in which our 
theologian goes to work, — this the foundation-stone upon 
which it is attempted to erect the new fabric of necessary and 
infinite intelligence. The same procedure is observed with 
regard to freedom of agency and almighty power, — with this 
difference, that the principle is not expressed but assumed. 
But while no one denies the existence of power, or intelli- 
gence, or agency — (whether free or not need not here be dis- 
puted) — we may ask by what means we become acquainted 
with their existence ? Is it by abstract principles ? — by the 
mathematical and absolute relation of things ? — No, but by 
consciousness and observation. 



66 



The best mode of making these matters plain and pal- 
pable to those unaccustomed to metaphysical discussions, is 
to illustrate them by a specific case in point. Suppose, then, 
that two vessels were presented to the most shrewd yet un- 
knowing inhabitant of Loo-choo, for example one charged 
with oxygen gas, and the other with carbonic acid gas, — how 
is he to tell the difference between them, or whether the ves- 
sels are not full of mere atmospheric air ? Would he be able 
to demonstrate their various characters without any trial or 
experiment ; showing that the latter naturally extinguishes 
combustion, and that the former, in certain cases, creates it ? 
Were he even to make the attempt, by what sort of rea- 
soning, I should be glad to know, would he proceed to prove 
the facts ? By what logic endeavour to establish their rela- 
tion to other facts, and the constitution and nature of things ? 
Or suppose that Mr Gillespie himself were shown a 
newly-discovered sort of animal, would he be able to de- 
scribe — nay, demonstrate — its intelligence, power, and kind 
of agency, — its character, habits, and everything else re- 
specting it, — independent of his previous knowledge of natu- 
ral history and comparative anatomy — independent of all 
analogy and experience ? — Would he make the slightest pre- 
tence to do this by purely abstract deduction, and by that 
alone ? If so, he must be far exalted above all earthly wis- 
dom, or fallen below any desire for its acquirement. If not, 
by what show of respect for his own ideas of sound argu- 
ment, can he pretend to demonstrate that any thing, espe- 
cially what he never saw, is necessarily all-powerful, necessa- 
rily intelligent, and necessarily free ? 

Necessarily free ! — Why, who ever heard of such a thing 
as necessary freedom ? Does not the paradox convey a suf- 
ficiency of contradiction to confute itself? " If," in the 
words of d'Holbach, " to he under necessity is to be free, 
what is it to be coerced ? And — of what sort of freedom is 
that which results from necessity ?" To maintain the abso- 
lute necessity of power and intelligence is not much better. 
Neither of these is just so paradoxical as the necessity of 
freedom ; but both are equally opposed to mathematical ne- 



67 



cessity, and as much so as that more curiously sounding 
doctrine. In short, the principle of the particular argu- 
ments introduced in support of the first part of his second 
book, is announced by Mr Gillespie himself simply as a 
fact ; and we have seen, I presume, from the reasoning of 
the reviewers given in the preface to this refutation, that no 
matter of fact can be proved by the argument a priori. 

But if the author thought intelligence, and power, and 
freedom of agency, necessary, in his own sense of the word, 
why did he not include them in the class of his necessary 
existences? Wherefore should he not have contended that 
they are substances? that they are infinite? of unity and 
simplicity, and so forth ? If the doctrines he would teach 
be consistent with his own method of reasoning, why did 
he not propound them in regular demonstrative form, ac- 
companying each proposition with arguments similar to 
those he adduces in demonstration of the existence of 
extension and duration ? What could have prevented 
him from repeating the same exact process in every indi- 
vidual case? He is lavish enough of his demonstrations, 
and repetitions too, where they were by no means so ur- 
gently called for as in these instances. How, then, should 
he have been so niggard of them now ? — now when the at- 
tributes so essential to the character of divinity are in 
question ; and when he could so easily establish them 
upon grounds that cannot be shaken? These attributes 
certainly offer a much wider opening for the introduction of 
substrata than the objects chosen for this new-fangled 
scheme of giving body to that which stands in need of 
none. The reason, I am afraid, is, that he was perfectly 
aware of the unsoundness of his theory, and dared not ven- 
ture upon the hopeless labour of making it out in the form 
which he evidently loves best; for we cannot think so 
meanly of Mr Gillespie's abilities as to suppose him blind to 
the advantage of a purely abstract deduction when it would 
have stood in so much stead, and have been most of all 
available. 

After all, however, it is perhaps more than questionable 

I 



68 



if theology can be rationally advantaged by any theory 
whatever. It is such a plexus of absurdities, that, once en- 
tangled in its meshes, we cannot get clearly out. Supposing, 
for instance, the necessary existence of intelligence, and 
power, and so forth, what does it make for the existence of 
a supreme intelligence ? — Nothing ; absolutely nothing. For 
in that case they must exist either by physical necessity or 
that which is strictly abstract. If the former — facts being 
the ground-work of our reasoning — we must conclude, that 
not only matter, but every particular thing, and every phe- 
nomenon we observe, as well as those indicated, exist and 
result by the same necessity : that the universe and all the 
operations of nature are necessary — and then, where would 
there be any occasion for a deity at all ? If, on the other 
hand, the qualities specified are supposed to exist by mathe- 
matical necessity, it would be impossible to conceive of their 
nonexistence, or even their absence from any part of space : 
and to affirm such absence, would be as flat a contradiction 
as to deny a subject to be predicable of itself. But further, 
the supposition would bring a conclusion along with it 
equally fatal to the great question at issue. Because the ne- 
cessary existence of power, intelligence, and freedom of 
agency, implies their existence in all places alike. To ima- 
gine otherwise would be the same as to imagine space un- 
equally distributed ; — a greater quantity of space in one 
cubic foot of extension than in another — than which nothing 
can be more absurd. But intelligence existing in all places 
alike, precludes the possibility of that, or power, or any- 
thing else which exists by metaphysical necessity, existing 
in degrees — either inferior or superior. 

Should it be argued — as it probably may, for there is no- 
thing too extraordinary for theorists', especially of the theisti- 
cal school, to argue, — that the moral attributes more imme- 
diately under notice do exist in this way, but that being infi- 
nitely superior to human power, intelligence, and so on, can- 
not be regarded as of the same order ; that, in fact, the 
latter depend upon the former, which could exist without 
them, — I would reply, that the hypothesis rests upon nothing 



09 



but assertion ; assertion, too, as irrational as it would be to 
maintain that boundless space, being infinitely superior to 
limited space, must be sui generis^ and quite capable of 
retaining its attribute of infinity, although any portion of 
space were struck out of existence. 

There may be a want of similarity in the things here made 
the basis of the parallel. That fault, however, does not 
militate against the validity of the conclusion. Abstractions 
and realities, it is true, cannot well be compared or made 
subjects of the same process of reasoning ; but men have 
often to encounter the foe with his own weapon. At all 
events, who is it that sets at nought this irrefragable truth ? 
and who has most to fear its being adopted, is the test of his 
reasoning ? — the theist or the antitheist? — Reply were super- 
fluous. If, upon the application of this powerful talisman to 
the half careless, and perhaps wholly gratuitous rejoinder 
just given to a supposed objection, fall to the ground, the 
cumbrous but ill-constructed fabric of the argument a priori 
comes lumbering down along with it. 



CHAP. XI. 

Fallacy of the " Argument " in favour of a supreme 
intelligence. 

In introducing into his " Argument" anything as proof for 
divine intelligence, power, &c. Mr Gillespie has certainly 
assumed most unwarrantable prerogatives. Dr Clarke, 
with much more consistency and candour, gives up the a 
priori mode of deduction the moment that the wisdom, and 
justice, and goodness of deity became the subjects of evi- 
dence. Prove them abstractly he saw that he could uot ; 
and although, in form, he does not exclude these attributes 
from his " Demonstration," he excludes them in fact, by 



70 



his avowed adoption of experimental reasoning. Was this 
example unworthy of being followed? or were the talents 
and reputation of the reverend doctor not sufficiently respec- 
table to require the assignment of some reason for adhering 
to a different line of conduct? It is surely more honourable 
to yield a position which it is impossible to retain, than 
battle for it in the certain prospect of defeat But his suc- 
cessor is a brave and determined adversary. He seizes upon 
every point, whether tenable or not, and if he cannot make 
his stand good, he at least offers as much resistance as pos- 
sible to any one who would dislodge him out of it. Be this 
as it may, no advantage shall be taken of his illogical course, 
in order to blink the present part of the argument. From 
the correspondence giving rise to this discussion, it appears 
that Mr Gillespie is particularly anxious that the evidence 
in support of a supreme intelligence should not be lost sight 
of. His wishes are, of course, to be respected; but what has 
been stated in the chapter immediately preceding must show 
him, I presume, that this is a concession which he had no 
right to demand. 

His argument is as follows : — " Intelligence either began 
to be, or it never began to be. That it never began to be is 
evident in this, that if it began to be, it must have had a 
cause ; for whatever begins to be must have a cause. And 
the cause of intelligence must be of intelligence ; for what is 
not of intelligence cannot make intelligence begin to be. 
Now, intelligence being before intelligence begins to be, is a 
contradiction. And this absurdity following from the sup- 
position that intelligence began to be, it is proved that intel- 
ligence never began to be." 

The pith of this argument lies in the proposition, that, 
the cause of intelligence must be of intelligence. Now, I 
intend to show, that the principle here laid down is not to be 
depended upon, in which case the argument proves nothing ; 
and also, that, admitting the soundness of the principle, it 
would lead to the introduction of an infinite series of intelli- 
gences, which would be to prove too much. 

First, then, I would ask what intelligence is ? Is it a 



71 



being — a substance — a thing that exists by itself? Or is it 
not, on the contrary, a characteristic property of a certain 
order of beings, dependent upon the exercise of their exter- 
nal senses, and, by consequence, their organization? We 
cannot even conceive how it should exist, independent of 
these circumstances. " To have intelligence, it is necessary 
to have ideas : to have ideas, it is necessary to have senses : 
and to have senses, it is necessary to be material." Intelli- 
gence, therefore, speaking generally, is nothing more than 
an accidental property of matter. It may be physically ne- 
cessary to the beings wherein it is found to exist, — yet, like 
organization, feeling and life in the same bodies — nay, like 
form, colour, &c. in vegetable substances, and even in many 
of those of the mineral world, — its production cannot be 
excluded from the class of effects resulting from material 
agency. This is strictly consistent with all facts — all obser- 
vation ; and no doctrine of an opposite description has ever 
been made consistent with either. 

But is it a law in physics that no new property can arise 
among substances in combination ? that nothing can result 
from any combination, except what had previously existed 
in these substances ? 

If this were the case, chemical science would be at an 
end ; or rather, it never could have had a beginning ; for its 
chief object and greatest glory is to discover new properties 
and powers in matter, and render these subservient to useful 
purposes. Let us, however, to use Lord Bacon's expressive 
language, " put the question to Nature." Is combustion, 
for instance, never produced in any case, but by substances 
previously in a state of combustion ? The very common, 
but interesting phenomenon of lire issuing from the collision 
of cold bodies, say flint and steel, is a sufficient reply. 
Another is, that oxygen and hydrogen, on being subjected 
to the agency of a sufficiently powerful heat, explode and 
resolve into water — a substance so hostile in its nature to 
the element from which in this case it sprung, that it is often 
employed to put down its fearful ravages. A multitude of 
examples of a similar description might be adduced ; such 



72 



as the ignition of iodine upon its contact with water; the 
exhibition of phosphoric light by agitating the brine of the 
ocean ; the production of colour by means of mixing li- 
quids possessing none themselves ; as well as the phenome- 
non of solidity resulting from a compound of substances in 
the fluid state,— but to enlarge would only be to occupy 
time in detailing what is too well known to require re- 
hearsal. 

" Intelligence, it may be said, is not a spark of fire ; 
neither is it colour nor solidity." True; but if the doctrine 
that would deduce the character of a cause from that of an 
effect be found incorrect in other instances, wherefore should 
it be correct in this ? Moreover, to evince intelligence in an 
agent producing any thing, it is not at all requisite that the 
same quality should be transferred to the thing produced. 
A steam-engine — a ship — a house — a watch — all destitute of 
intelligence, yet clearly show intelligence to have been en- 
gaged in their construction. If this property, then, exists in 
the cause, and not in the effect, why may it not exist in 
the effect without being in the cause ? 

Throughout the whole range of our observation, indeed, 
there is not such a thing to be found as intelligence really 
producing intelligence. It discovers properties and powers 
in the various species of matter ; it adapts these to its own 
purposes, and contrives new modes of applying them to 
those ends. In short, intelligence is not procreative : it does 
not generate anything of its own kind: its operations are 
entirely confined to the improvement of things and circum- 
stances as found to exist, which may have a tendency to 
exhaust, but certainly not to reproduce it. 

Even in the generation of the human animal, what do we 
discover ? Not the operation of intelligence adopting a spe- 
cific procedure in order to compass an end, but what I have 
heard physiologists denominate a process of animal chemis- 
try. Intelligence is not, and cannot, be present in the first 
stage of this process. Organization must, at least, be com- 
pleted ; and hence the quality in question is evidently the 
result of mere physical agency. If intelligence be thus 



73 



produced in one instance, nay, in many instances, as far as 
observation goes, — why not in all ? 

" But, original intelligence," — I think I hear it vehement- 
ly demanded, — "how came intelligence originally? — By 
physical agency too ?" — In these questions, and such like, 
now grown very commonplace, much is usually taken for 
granted, and not a little that it would be difficult to reconcile 
with philosophy. It is first assumed, that at some time or 
other, a pair of human beings, the progenitors of the order, 
were brought into existence, and had the gift of intelligence 
bestowed upon them ; and then that all who do not agree to 
the truth of this theory, are obliged to satisfy the advocates 
of it with a solution of the occurrence assumed ! In the 
mouth of the theist, then, what are all queries of the sort, 
but a begging of the whole question ? What is it but to take 
for granted the existence of a supernatural being, capable of 
performing all the impossibilities ascribed to the god of the 
common faith ? To analyze these points in their various 
bearings, would be to discuss the extensive and complicated 
doctrine of final causes, which would be prejudiced by any 
partial view of it that could be taken here. It will be suffi- 
cient to remark, that, supposing the existence of a god, 
vested with all power and all wisdom, he must either be sup- 
posed to execute his works by mechanical means — such as 
are employed by the artist who models the clay with his own 
hands — or to have impressed upon matter such properties as 
would tend to the effectuation of his purposes by general 
laws. But the former supposition, besides being gross and 
degrading, and nowhere capable of support from anything 
like rational principle, is inadmissible on the ground that it 
indicates an estimate of the divine attributes infinitely be- 
neath the standard specified. The question, therefore, to be 
settled is, (and be it always and most especially remembered, 
that everything at issue between the theist and antitheist re- 
solves itself into this question,) — whether is it more con- 
sistent with science and philosophy, to imagine matter ori- 
ginally existing without properties, and then — making up 
for this deficiency — to introduce a being whose existence is 



74 



only supposed for argument's sake, for the purpose of giving 
away what it has never been proved he had to give, namely, 
the properties of matter to matter without properties ; — or, 
to allow these properties to exist inherently in that which we 
cannot exclude from our perceptions, which would be no- 
thing — which would even be inconceivable without such pro- 
perties. 

To ask any man which of the alternatives is the most con- 
sistent with reason, would be offering an insult to that very 
reason. It may be very gratifying to people who have em- 
braced a favorite theory respecting the origin of intelligence, 
to ask those who — although they could — do not choose to 
theorize upon subjects where experience alone is an adequate 
guide, how they account for the phenomenon in question ; 
but the mass of absurdity into which these theorists have 
fallen, is too open and palpable not to serve as a warning 
against the foolish and empty pride of thinking to account 
for everything, and particularly for a matter upon which all 
men are equally ignorant. It may be a humbling duty to 
acknowledge ignorance ; but it is surely more philosophical 
to perform it ingenuously, than to vaunt of a species of know, 
ledge which it is impossible for any one case to possess. 

On the question of the origin of intelligence, then, the 
theologian stands upon much more untenable ground than 
his unbelieving opponent. The one, in the very last re- 
source, would only be disposed to admit physical causes 
operating of themselves, and according to the nature of the 
substances operating ; while the other insists upon nothing 
else than the same causes, only encumbered with an unne- 
cessary and good-for-nothing superintendent. But even Mr 
Gillespie's reasoning is totally unfit to establish his theory of 
eternal intelligence. For by a parity of reasoning, we may 
assert that matter exists; that it must either have existed al- 
ways, or have been derived from something material; for 
that which is material must be of matter, and, consequently, 
that matter is necessarily eternal. The last, indeed, is by 
far the best argument of the two, inasmuch as causation has 
a closer bearing upon things or substances than upon mere 



75 



properties. Take his reasoning in this case throughout, sub- 
stituting matter for intelligence, and we have a powerful 
lever operating upon the fulcrum of his own principles for 
overturning all that he has brought against the self-exist- 
ence of the material universe, independent of what has pre- 
viously been advanced upon the subject. 

But, again, if the argument were admitted to be sound 
that would deduce the existence of supernatural intelligence 
from the fact of human and perhaps other intelligences ex- 
isting — say that of the dog, the elephant, &c. — a thousand 
sequences would rush in with the admission in " the most 
admired disorder," reducing natural theology to a confused 
heap of contradictions and unmitigated folly. The form and 
organization of the elephant, it might be alleged, is eternal; 
because these are at present found to exist, and must there- 
fore have had a cause. But that which bears the form and 
organization specified must come of an agent of the same 
structure ; for no effect can result out of a cause of a differ- 
ent description. Hence the great first cause of all things 
would require by the argument to be of all forms, all pas- 
sions, all dispositions and characters, even the most contra- 
dictory and incompatible. I seek not to expose the naked- 
ness of such a system, by distinct allusions to the baser, as 
well as the more exalted, of the animal functions, and all the 
considerations that belong to them ; yet I think it at least 
pardonable, to state a case strictly analogous to the author's 
own, but operating to the detriment of the divine character, 
that he may either see more clearly the fallaciousness of all 
such reasoning as that which he has employed in endeavour- 
ing to establish a supreme intelligence, or in the last resort, 
admit the conclusion, together with those just hinted at. 

" Moral Depravity exists. And Moral Depravity either 
began to be, or it never began to be. — That it never began 
to be is evident in this, that if it began to be, it must have 
had a cause ; for whatever begins to be must have a cause. 
And the cause of Moral Depravity must be of Moral De- 
pravity : for what is not of Moral Depravity, cannot make 
Moral Depravity begin to be. Now, Moral Depravity be- 

K 



76 



ing before Moral Depravity began to be, is a contradiction. 
And this absurdity following from the supposition that Mo- 
ral Depravity began to be, it is proved that Moral Depravity 
never began to be : to wit, is of Infinity of Duration. And 
as Moral Depravity is of Infinity of Duration, and it sup- 
poses a Being; And no succession of beings is of infinity of 
duration ; It necessarily follows, that there is one Being of 
Infinity of Duration which is of Moral Depravity." 

The objection therefore, to an ever-during intelligence, is 
fixed and settled upon the surest basis : but we have yet to 
take notice of what the author's argument would lead to, 
even although we were to grant the existence of superhuman 
intelligence, as necessary to account for the existence of that 
which is human. It may be stated in a very few words. 

In accounting for the existence of human intelligence, if 
it be necessary to look to a higher intelligence as the origin 
of it, we must account for the existence of the latter in pre- 
cisely the same manner. We may turn the table of ques- 
tions upon the theist, and ask how this last has come into 
existence ? by supernatural causes, too ? — The conclusion is 
inevitable ; and then the next ? who gave intelligence to 
that? Something, of course, still higher in the order of in- 
telligence, and still more remote in its agency. If we could 
stop even here, there might be some little satisfaction re- 
sulting from the inquiry ; but that is impossible. We can 
stop neither here nor anywhere else. The motive that acted 
in taking of the first step, urges to a second, a third, and a 
thousandth ; and all, too, with undiminished force and 
energy. Once begin the series, and there can be no such 
thing as a termination to it. It would be a substratum of 
infinity of duration. 

Is there any sound reason, any rule in logic, to impugn 
the accuracy of this conclusion ? Shall we be told that the 
intelligence to which we owe the little share of it we possess, 
is infinite, underived, and necessarily existing ? Some proof 
of this were better than an assertion ; for assertion it cer- 
tainly is, and that, too, a gratuitous one. It is more ; it is 
a begging of the question at issue. How know we that the 



81 



in contradiction to this principle, is, — that the essential at- 
tributes of unity and simplicity are proved by the fact, of 
the substance of infinite extension and duration being im- 
moveable; and that the grand and necessary attribute of 
almighty power is proved from the fact of the said sub- 
stance being moveable, — that is, of its acting ; aye, and not 
merely acting in the ordinary way, but performing the 
greatest of all actions, — the mighty act of creation, and the 
scarcely less mighty act of putting all created things in mo- 
tion : — This savours rather too much of a contradiction in 
terms to require any comment. It is somewhat wonderful, 
however, that in framing his argument for the substratum of 
duration and extension being the originator of motion, the 
author should not have glanced at that in favour of divine 
intelligence, only two or three pages back. How is it, if intelli- 
gence must come of intelligence, that motion must not come 
of motion ? And if motion must come of motion — what be- 
comes of the argument for the unity and simplicity of space 
and duration, and their substratum, and, of course, that 
against the self-existence of matter? 



CHAP. XIII. 

Retrospective and Concluding Remarks. 

What, now, is the utmost value we can set upon the 
argument a priori for the being and attributes of God ? 
Does it possess any value whatever? If it does, it has yet 
to be shown, for in the hands of the great Rector of St 
James's, it only proves that something must have existed 
from all eternity ; and in those of a learned and eminent 
logician of our northern metropolis, nothing more than the 
necessary existence of infinite space and duration : none of 
which propositions were ever disputed, or make any thing 
in reality for the question. This has already been sum*- 



82 



ciently evinced in the foregoing analysis of their reasonings : 
yet it may not be amiss to concentrate into one view the 
chief features, the shortcomings, and anomalies of this ex- 
traordinary attempt to prop up, upon rational principles, 
what has nothing to do with such principles, but which must 
for ever remain a mere matter of faith. 

The " Something" of Dr Clarke is doubtless intended to 
be understood as a thing different and distinct from matter. 
But how does he go about the demonstration that it is so ? 
He finds something — that is, matter — in existence at pre- 
sent ; and hence infers that something, whether matter or 
any thing else, has always existed. Then, by showing that 
matter may be conceived not to exist, concludes that it is not 
the always existing something. But mark the fallacy of his 
deduction ! The existence of matter is evidently the basis 
upon which his argument rests; so that by throwing matter 
out of his reckoning, he cuts away the foundation from 
under his own reasoning. 

Allowing this undermining of his own position to pass, 
however, he seems to forget that the very objection which he 
makes to the necessary existence of matter, operates with at ' 
least equal force against that of the something for whose 
sake he seeks to rob the material universe of its essential 
properties. It is as easy to conceive of the nonexistence of 
the thing supposed, as to conceive of the nonexistence of 
that of which we are ourselves made up, together with the 
world we inhabit, and the countless suns and systems occu- 
pying space in all directions. The latter has, besides, this 
immense advantage even at the worst, that if not mathema- 
tically necessary any more than the former, it is physically 
necessary, to which important attribute the other can make 
no manner of claim. 

To avoid these errors, and to make sure of the necessity 
so much desired, Mr Gillespie lays hold of the only two 
things to which it can at all be made applicable — duration 
and space — and gives them substance, or a substantial sup- 
port, that he may have wherewithal to designate a being — a 
necessary being of infinity of extension and duration. But 



83 



in this case, as m the preceding, there is an odd forget ful- 
ness of first principles. Infinite extension and infinite dura- 
tion are either necessary of themselves — absolutely so, or 
they are not. If necessary of themselves, then is the intro- 
duction of Mr Gillespie's substance or substratum gratuitous 
and absurd; if not necessary, — the primary propositions in 
the argument are false and groundless. 

Both these writers thus fail, as well as Mr Jack — signally 
fail — in bringing out anything tangible — any being or agent 
whose existence can be brought within the grasp of our com- 
prehension. None of them seems able to afford a single 
word of explanation or description relative to the nature and 
specific qualities of their assumed somethings. All have 
evidently the shadow of an abstraction in their eye, instead 
of a real, an efficient and absolute deity. Dr Clarke, indeed, 
at once admits and declares the impossibility of our ever be- 
ing able to comprehend anything about it ; and Mr Gillespie 
is reduced to the dire necessity of doing what is not much 
better. He can only insist dogmatically upon duration and 
extension being recognized as substances, and in self-satis- 
fied proof, challenges any one, in the most braggart and im- 
perious tone, to show why they are not to be regarded as 
substances ! Eheu ! eheu ! and this, they say, is reasoning 
— this, what they are not ashamed to call by the honored 
name of demonstration ! Reasoning and demonstration it 
may be, the best that, in the circumstances, could be af- 
forded : but only think of the consummate irrationality of 
any system depending upon such logic for its support. 

These are the particular fallacies which characterize the 
reasoners for the being of a God according to the argument 
a priori. But the grand error, the master fallacy of all, 
consists of the mere construction put upon a word — a word, 
too, that is never out of their mouth — Necessity. Yield 
them this, and they work miracles with it. It is their magic 
rod by whose power they banish the material universe from 
the class of self-existences, and foist a nonentity into its 
place. They turn it into a weapon of warfare too, and their 
forte lies in the dexterous use they can make of it. They 

L 



84 



fight with it to the last ; and even after it has broken in 
their hands, they either beg the advantage, or desperately 
contrive to make passes and guards with the fragments of 
their broken reed. Deprive them of this purely abstract 
necessity, and their argument becomes of none effect. All 
their quaint and technical reasonings ; all their sage conclu- 
sions, resolve themselves into worse than empty and unmean- 
ing form. And, that mathematical rules do not apply to phy- 
sics and morals, does not require much reflection to per- 
ceive : and if it did, relevant grounds for the exclusion of 
that sort of necessity from questions of this nature, have not 
been left to the present late stage of the discussion. 

The last, but by no means the most insignificant error re- 
sulting from the use of a priori reasoning is, that it shuts the 
theist out, as has been but recently shown, from the possi- 
bility of proving anything relative to the divine character. 
Power, intelligence, wisdom, justice, goodness, truth, and so 
orij . — may, without the least difficulty, be conceived absent 
from any part of infinite extension or duration, and conse- 
quently from all ; but as nothing exists by the necessity of 
this argument, whose absence from any point of time or space 
may be so much as imagined, the existence of these attri- 
butes, or of any such, can never be held necessary a priori. 

Seemingly aware of having thus foreclosed themselves by 
their own act from all consideration of the second part of 
the subject, the advocates of theism shift their ground, and 
now attempt making it out by the argument drawn from ex- 
perience. This is as if we were to attempt to prove, by re- 
gular process, the postulate of there being a line carried 
over the British channel in the form of an arc ; and then, be- 
cause arches extended over water are usually called bridges, 
to conclude that the one stretching between Calais and 
Dover must be a good substantial bridge of granite, if not 
adamant, capable of sustaining carriages of any burden, and 
passengers to any amount. Or, as if any of us were to be 
tried at the bar of justice, and found guilty of robbery, 
murder, and every kind of crime, not because we had com- 
mitted, or ever thought of committing them, but because, 



85 



according to certain dogmas, we are all " sinners in the 
abstract," and therefore obnoxious to the utmost penalty 
of human laws as well as divine. The man who should 
submit without complaint to so hard a fate on so slight yet 
subtle grounds, might, with perfect consistency, allow the 
force of the a priori argument eked out by that of expe- 
rience, but not otherwise. Whatever dissatisfaction any 
one might have to express, would lie as an objection to the 
motley and incoherent juncture of the arguments now re- 
ferred to. 

But, humouring the theologian in all his quirks, and 
yielding him every advantage, what does he make of intelli- 
gence, power, and all that? He takes for granted the 
astounding fact of the material universe having been created 
out of nothing, and thence infers, that that which created 
matter, and intelligence, and motion — namely, space and du- 
ration — must possess power, and agency, and intelligence, to 
an illimitable extent, notwithstanding the nature of the thing 
rendering impossible the possession of any such qualities, — 
or indeed any quality, other than extension : — More shortly 
thus, — The necessary existence of infinite time and space 
prove the fact of creation ; and the fact of creation proves 
the possession of intelligence, power, and freedom of 
agency, by infinite time and space. If this be not reasoning 
in a circle, it is a very clever approach to it. It is twisting 
the ends of things so as to make them meet somehow : it 
is an attempt to establish as truth, at the expence of nature 
and philosophy, that which is contradicted both by philoso- 
phy and nature, as well as by immutable truth. 

Destitute of moral attributes, then, destitute of cognisable 
properties and even of substance, what are we to denominate 
the subject of abstract theological reasoning ? It would be 
ridiculous to call it god ; it would be foolish to call it matter, 
or give it the name of anything we know. Not more empty 
and fleeting is the filmy cloud that meets the eye of the 
mariner as it floats upon the distant horizon ; and not more 
capable of realising the dreams respecting it, than is that de- 
ceitful appearance of land calculated to fulfil the ardent anti- 



86 



cipations of home, comforts, friends, and enjoyments, which 
it suggests. The garden of the Hesperides, with its golden 
fruit, may as soon be expected to spring up from the vapour 
of the Atlantic, as that the mere abstraction brought out by 
the argument a priori, should be proved a deity by its sus- 
tainment of the divine character. 

Meagre and unsatisfactory as this whole argument is, how- 
ever, we are made to understand that the other arguments 
for the being and attributes of a god are much inferior to it. 
It is confidently held forth as the greatest, the best, and most 
complete of all, and the only one which is perfectly conclu- 
sive. If this be sooth, — and it is not here that the statement 
may be questioned — theology has miserably little to boast of. 
What can be said of its first principles, but that they are 
trite and inapplicable ? what of its reasons, but that they are 
crank and unnatural, to say nothing of their dryness and 
total want of interest — devoid either of truth or comprehen- 
sibility? and what of its inferences, but that they are far- 
fetched and tortuous, and of course amply illogical ? Theo- 
logy must be sorely distressed for standing ground, if this be 
its strongest position — its fortress — its rock — its high tower. 
The ignorant, and those who make but slender pretensions 
to reasoning, fly to the first and most obvious thing they can 
find to prove the existence of their god. They appeal to the 
thunder, the earthquake, the tornado. They appeal to ship- 
wrecks, conflagrations, and the thousand disasters that fall 
indiscriminately on the unfortunate, as well as all the evils 
that flesh is heir to, and ask if these are not the doings of an 
infinitely just and benevolent deity. The half reasoner; he 
who would be considered a votary of physical science as well 
as of divinity ; who divides his homage between the two; or 
who rather — if not holding to the' one and despising the 
other — would reconcile religion to philosophy by rendering 
the latter subservient to the former as the object of his great- 
est solicitude, — appeals to a constitution of things and an or- 
der of nature destitute of ail moral regard, but where, on the 
contrary, innocence and guilt are completely confounded, as 
if by a blind and unintelligent fatality. But now comes the 



87 



mathematician to quash all these appeals as having reference 
to limited power and limited intellect; as having reference to 
something which (for aught that appears to the contrary) may 
not have always existed — nay, which at this moment may- 
have dropped altogether out of being. His objections to the 
reasoning of his friends are certainly cogent and strong, and 
hence his mode of proof may, after all, be justly entitled to 
the decision he awards in its favor. But until he can anni- 
hilate the universe by some other means than the equivoca- 
tion of a word ; until he can demonstrate the self-existent 
substance by a process more worthy of respect than a ridicu- 
lous bravado ; and until he is able to show that all the attri- 
butes he would fain ascribe to the object of his search, are as 
necessarily applicable to that object as the relation between 
twice two and four : — till he accomplish all this, he labors 
but in vain : he only sows the wind and reaps the whirlwind. 



FINIS. 



Printed and Published by H. Robinson & Co. 7, Brunswick Place, 



ERRATA. 

Page 20, line 23, for " obscurity," read " absurdity." 

Page 66, line 6 from bottom, for " he," read "be." 

Page 69, line 13, for " is," read " as." 

Page 74, line 22, dele " case." 

Page 78, line 16, after matter, supply ? 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Dec. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 1 1 



